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FLAMING YOUTH 




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Flaming Youth 

WARNER FABIAN 




BONI AND LIV EllIGHT 
Publishers New York 


Copyright 1922-1923, 

By BONI & LIVERIGHT. Inc. 


Printed in the United States of America 


First Printing, January, 1923 
Second Printing, February, 1923 
Third Printing, February, 1923 
Fourth Printing, March, 1923 
Fifth Printing, March, 1923 




A WORD FROM THE WRITER TO THE READER: 


“Those who know will not tell; those who tell do not 
know/* 

The old saying applies to woman in to-day’s literature. 
Women writers when they write of women, evade and con-* 
ceal and palliate. Ancestral reticences, sex loyalties, dissuade 
the pen. 

Men writers when they write of women, do so without com-< 
prehension. Men understand women only as women choose 
to have them, with one exception, the family physician. He 
knows. He sees through the body to the soul. But he may 
not tell what he sees. Professional honour binds him. Only 
through the unaccustomed medium of fiction and out of the 
vatic incense-cloud of pseudonymity may he speak the truth. 
Being a physician, I must conceal my identity, and, not less 
securely, the identity of those whom I picture. 

There is no such suburb as Dorrisdale . . . and there are a 
score of Dorrisdales. There is no such family as the 
Fentrisses . . . and there are a thousand Fentriss families. 
For the delineation which I have striven to present, honestly 
and unreservedly, of the twentieth century woman of the 
luxury-class I beg only the indulgence permissible to a 
neophyte’s pen. I have no other apologia to offer. 

To the woman of the period thus set forth, restless, 
seductive, greedy, discontented, craving sensation, unre¬ 
strained, a little morbid, more than a little selfish, intelligent, 
uneducated, sybaritic, following blind instincts and perverse 
fancies, slack of mind as she is trim of body, neurotic and 
vigorous, a worshipper of tinsel gods at perfumed altars, fit 
mate for the hurried, reckless and cynical man of the age, 
predestined mother of—what manner of being?: To Her I 
dedicate this study of herself. 


W. F. 



FLAMING YOUTH 


PART I 
CHAPTER I 

The food was vital with air and fresh With the scent 
of many flowers. It was a happy room, a loved room, 
even a petted room. There was about it a sense of stir, 
of life, of habitual holiday. Some rooms retain these 
echoes. People say of them that they have character 
or express individuality. But this one’s character was 
composite, possessing attributes of the many who had 
come and gone and laughed and played and perhaps 
loved there, at the behest of its mistress. A captious 
critic might have complained that it was over-crowded. 
The same critic might have said the same of Mona Fen- 
triss’s life. 

TKougK a chiefly contributory part of the room’s 
atmosphere, Mona Fentriss’s personality was not fully 
reflected in her immediate environment. The room was 
not a married room. It suggested none of the staidness, 
the habitude, the even acceptances of conjugal life. The 
bed stood outside, on the sleeping porch. It was a single 
bed. Unfriendly commentators upon the Fentriss menage 
had been known to express the conviction that marriage 
was not a specially important element in Mrs. Fentriss’s 
joyous existence. Nevertheless there were the three chil¬ 
dren, all girls. There was also Fentriss. 

The mistress of the room lolled on a cushioned chaise 
longue near the side window. She was a golden-brown, 

strong, delicately rounded woman, glowing with an effect 

7 


8 FLAMING YOUTH 

of triumphant and imperishable youth. Not one of her 
features but was faulty by strict artistic tenets; even 
the lustrous eyes were set at slightly different levels. 
Yet the total effect was that of loveliness; yes, more, of 
compelling charm. One would have guessed her to be 
still short of thirty. 

“This is final, is it?” she asked evenly of a man who was 
standing near the door. 

“It’s final enough,” he answered. 

He shambled across the room to her side, moving like 
a bear. Like a bear’s his exterior was rough, shaggy, 
and seemed not to fit him well. His face was irregu¬ 
larly square, homely, thoughtful, ^nd humorous. “Want 
to cry?” he asked. 

“No. I want to swear.” 

“Go ahead.” 

Downstairs a door opened and closed. There fol¬ 
lowed the rhythmic crepitation of ice against metal. 

“There’s Ralph home,” interpreted the wife. “Call 
down and tell him to shake up one for me.” 

“Better not.” 

“Oh, you be damned!” she retorted, twinkling at him. 

. “You’ve finished your day’s job as a physician. I need 
one.” 

As he obediently went out she mused, with the instinct 
of the competent housekeeper: 

“Gin’s gone to twenty-five dollars a gallon. That’ll 
rasp poor old Ralph. I wonder how much this will jar 
him.” By “this” she meant the news which she had just- 
forced from the reluctant lips of Dr. Robert Osterhout. 
She pursued her line of thought. “Who’ll take over the 
house? The girls know nothing about running it. 
Perhaps he’ll marry again. He’s very young for fifty.” 

The two men entered, Fentriss carrying the shaker. 


FLAMING YOUTH 


9 


He set it down, crossed the room and kissed his wife. 
There was an effect of habitual and well-bred gallantry 
in the act. He was a slender, alert, companionable look¬ 
ing man with a quizzical expression. Dr. Osterhout 
poured out a cocktail which he offered to Mrs. Fentriss. 
She regarded it contemptuously. 

“Bob, you devil! That’s only half a drink.” 

“It’s more than you ought to have.” 

“Pour me a real one. At once! Ralph; you do it. 
Come on.” 

With a shrug and a deprecatory smile at the physician, 
Ralph Fentriss filled the glass to the brim. The Fentriss 
cocktails were famous far beyond the suburban limits of 
Dorrisdale for length as well as flavour. 

“Here’s to Prohibition,” said their concoctor in his 
suave voice, before drinking; “and to your better health, 
my dear.” 

“A toi,” she responded carelessly. “Leave the shaker, 
will you, Ralph? Bob and I are talking.” 

Fentriss nodded and went. A moment later the concert 
grand in the big living room below stairs responded to 
a touch at once delicate, strong and distinctive. 

“How I used to love his music!” said Mona Fentriss 
half to herself; “and still do,” she added. “Bob.” She 
turned upon her physician with laughing reproach in her 
eyes. “Don’t you know better, after all these years, 
than to try to keep me from doing anything I want to 
do? I always get what I want.” 

“If you don’t, it’s not for lack of trying.” 

“I don’t even have to try very hard. Life has been a 
generous godfather to me. But I’ve always wanted more. 
Like Oliver Twist, wasn’t it? Or Jephthah’s daughter?” 

Dr. Osterhout grinned. “It was the horse leech’s 
daughters that were always crying ‘Give! Give!’ ” 


10 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Why cry for it? Reach out and help yourself,’’ sKe 
said gaily. “Them’s my principles. And now the fairy 
godfather is going to cut me off with a shilling. Or a 
year. Or less.” 

“Unless you obey orders it’ll be considerably less.” 

“Let it 1 I’d rather do as I please while it lasts. 

“ ‘I’ve taken my fun where I found it, 

I’ve rogued and I’ve ranged in my time,’ ” 

t » 

sang Ralph Fentriss at the piano below to music of his 
own composing. 

“So have I,” murmured his wife. Her eyes grew bril¬ 
liant, craving, excited as they wandered to the flower- 
decked mantel upon which stood half a dozen photographs. 
All were of men. Though they varied in age and indica¬ 
tions of character, they presented a typical similarity 
in being well-groomed and attractive. They might all 
have belonged to the same club. “Bob, do many women 
confess to their doctors?” 

“Lots.” 

“To you?” 

“No. I don’t let ’em.” 

“Why not? I should think it would be interesting.” 

“It’s only a trick to gratify the senses through recol¬ 
lection,” said the blunt physician. “Reflected lechery.” 

“You know too much, Bob. Then you won’t be my 
father confessor?” 

“I doubt if you could tell me much,” he said slowly. 

A smile, unabashed and mischievous, played upon her 
lips. “That’s an ambiguous sort of answer. Sometimes 
I suspect that very little gets past you.” 

“I’m trained to observation,” he remarked. 

“And to silence. So you’re safe. I think it would do 


FLAMING YOUTH 


XX 

me good to confess to you.” She grew still and pensive. 
“Bob, if I’d been a Roman Catholic do you suppose I’d 
have been—different?” 

“Doubted. Would you want to be?” 

“I don’t really know that I would. Anyway I’m what 
I had to be. We all are.” 

“Fatalism is a convenient excuse.” 

“No; but I am,” she insisted. “It’s temperament. 
Temperament is fate. For a woman, anyway,” she added 
with a flash of insight. “You don’t blame me, do you? 
I couldn’t help it, could I?” 

He smiled down at her, tolerant but uncompromising. 
“Oh, don’t stand there looking like God,” she fret¬ 
ted. “Do you know what I’d resolved to do? Will you 
laugh at me if I tell you?” 

“Probably. Therefore tell me.” 

“I was going to be a pattern of all the proprieties after 
I turned forty.” 

“Too early,” he pronounced judicially. 

“Why? What do you mean?” 

“Make it fifty.” 

She knit her smooth forehead. “Because" I wouldn’t 
be pretty then?” 

“Oh, you’d charm and attract men at seventy. But 
you wouldn’t have such a—well, such an urgent tempera¬ 
ment. That passes, usually.” 

“Bob! You beast!” But she laughed. “You’re very 
much the medical man, aren’t you?” 

“It’s my business in life.” 

“Well, the whole discussion is what you call an academic 
question, anyhow. If you and your hateful medical sci¬ 
ence are right, I’ll never see thirty-eight, let alone forty. 
I don’t feel thirty-seven. There’s so much life in me. 
Too much, I suppose.” 


12 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“No. Not too much.” 

“No more flutters for pretty Mona,” she mused. “At 
least she’s had her share. Do you think Ralph cares?” 

“You’re the one to know that.” 

“If he does, he’s never given any sign. But then, it’s 
years since he’s been true to me.” 

Her companion made a slight, uninterpretable gesture. 

“Shall I tell him? Your verdict, I mean.” 

“Great Judas, no! Why stir him up? It’s going to 
be hard enough on him anyway.” 

“Is it?” she said wistfully. “He’ll miss me in a way, 
won’t he? I am fond of him, too, you know.” 

“Yes. I understand that.” 

“But 3 r ou don’t understand why I’ve gone trouble-hunt¬ 
ing, out of bounds.” 

“Yes. 1 understand that, too.” 

“Perhaps you do. You understand lots more than one 
would think from your dear, old, stupid face.” She 
paused. “Tell me something, honestly, Bob. Has there 
been much talk about me?” 

“Oh, there’s always talk and always will be about any¬ 
one as brilliant and vivid as you.” 

“Don’t evade. Some of the older crowd look at me as 
if they thought I was the Scarlet Woman come back to 
life. I’m not the Scarlet Woman, Bob. Only a dash of 
pink.” 

He smiled indulgently. 

“It’s strange,” she mused, “how the tradition of be¬ 
haviour clings in the blood, in that set. Your set, Bob. 
Ah, well! Discretion is the better part of virtue, as 
someone said. And I haven’t been discreet, even if I have 
been virtuous. You believe I’ve been, don’t you, Bob?” 

“What, discreet?” 


FLAMING YOUTH 13 

Again she laughed, showing little, even, animal-like 
teeth. 

“No; the other thing.” 

“I believe whatever you want me to.” 

“Meaning that you reserve your own opinion. But 
you’re a staunch friend, anyway. . . . The trouble with 
me is that I was born too soon. I really belong with 
this wild young age that’s coming on the stage just as 
I’m going off; with the girls. Listen 1” 

Below stairs Fentriss, still at the piano, had swung 
into the rhythms of the Second Rhapsody, wild and broken 
as white water seething through a rock-beset gorge. 

“That’s the measure they dance to, the new generation. 
Doesn’t it get into your torpid blood, Bob? Don’t you 
wish you were young again? To be a desperado of 
twenty! They’re all desperadoes, these kids, all of them 
with any life in their veins; the girls as well as the boys; 
maybe more than the boys. Even Connie with her eyes 
of a vestal. Ah!” 

A new note had merged with the music, a hoarse, child¬ 
ish croon, following the mad measure with an interwoven 
recitative. 

“That’s Patricia. She’s dancing to it.” 

“How can you tell?” asked the physician. 

“By the way she’s singing. Little devil! I wonder 
what it’ll be like by the time she’s grown up,” mused the 
mother. 

“Which won’t be so long, now.” 

“So it won’t. I keep forgetting that. She seems such! 
a baby. What a queer little creature it is, Bob!” 

“She’s a terror. But there’s something lovable about 
her, too. A touch of you in her, Mona.” 

“Of me? She’s no more like me than I’m like my name¬ 
sake of the well-known Lisa family. Nor like the older 


14 


FLAMING YOUTH 


girls, either. Well, why shouldn’t she be different from 
them? Coming five years after I’d supposed all that sort 
of thing was over. She was pure accident. How I tried 
to get out of having her! Perhaps that’s why she’s such 
a strange little elf. But Ralph’s crazy about her—as 
much as he can be crazy about anything. I thought for a 
time she’d bring us together again.” 

“But you found variety more amusing than pure domes¬ 
ticity,” suggested the physician. 

“I? It wasn’t I that began it; it was Ralph. You 
know I never went in for even the mildest flirtation until 
long after Pat was born; until I began to get bored with 
the sameness of life.” 

“Boredom leads more women astray than passion,” pro¬ 
nounced the other oracularly; “in our set, anyway.” 

“Oh, astray,” she fretted. “Don’t use mid-Victorian 
pulpit language.” 

“I was only philosophising about our lot in general.” 

“We’re a pretty rotten lot, aren’t we! Though I sup¬ 
pose the people you don’t know, the people that nobody 
knows, are just as rotten. Ah, well, so long as one pre¬ 
serves appearances! And Ralph has no kick coming. 
He’d gone on the loose before I ever looked sidewise at 
any other man. They say he’s got a Floozie now, tucked 
away in a cozy corner somewhere.” 

“Do they?” 

“Has he?” 

“Ask him.” 

‘‘Too good a sport,” she retorted. “I shouldn’t be ask¬ 
ing you if I thought you’d tell me. Very likely you don’t 
know. He hasn’t been boring you with confessions, I’ll 
bet! Men don’t, do they ?” 

“Only of their symptoms.” 

“But they confess to women.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


15 


“The more fools they!” 

“Can’t I wring a confession out of you?” she teased. 
“Why haven’t you ever made love to me, Bob?” 

C< T oo much afraid of losing what little I’ve got of you,” 
he returned sombrely. 

“How do you know you wouldn’t have got more? How 
do you know that I wouldn’t have given you—every¬ 
thing?” 

“Everything you could give wouldn’t be enough.” 

“Pig! You don’t want much, do you!” 

“Have you ever really cared for any of your partners 
in flirtation?” 

“You speak as if I’d had dozens,” she pouted. 

“It isn’t a question of the quantity but of the quality 
of your attachments. If I’d ever asked anything of you 
it would have been—well, romance.” He laughed quietly 
at himself. “Something you haven’t got to give. You 
see, I’m a romantic and you’re not. You’ve sought ex¬ 
citement, admiration, change. But not ‘the light that 
never was on land or sea.’ You’re adventurous and pas¬ 
sionate, but not romantic. It’s quite a different order pf 
thing.” 

“And you’re brutal. Besides, you’re wrong; quite 
wrong.” 

“Am I?” His glance ranged the faces on the mantel. 
“Which one?” 

She gave him a swift smile. “He isn’t there. You 
never saw him. His name was Cary Scott.” 

“Was ? Is he dead ?” 

“He’s out of my life; or almost. He’s married. He 
was hardly more than a boy when I knew him. Nine years 
ago in Paris. He was studying at the Poly technique, 
doing his post-graduate work and doing it brilliantly, I 
believe. He went mad over me. My fault; I meant him 


16 


FLAMING YOUTH 


to; it amused me. I was attracted, too. There was a 
vividness of youth about him. I didn’t realise how much 
I was going to miss him out of my life, though, until we 
came back. I did miss him. Like hell!” 

“He was the one to whom you really gave?” 

“Hardly so much as a kiss. I wanted to keep it that 
way, and he was slave to me. He was an innocent sort 
of soul, I think. Every year he sends me a card on my 
birthday—that was the date of our first meeting—to re¬ 
mind me that sometime we are to take up our friendship 
again. I never answer but I never quite forget.” 

“Ah, that’s the sort of thing that I’d have asked but 
never expected of you.” 

“No; you never could have had it. That’s the sort of 
thing that one gives but once.” Suddenly she shot out 
her white, strong hand and gripped his wrist. “If you’d 
ever been really in love with me,” she said fiercely, “you 
wouldn’t let me die. You’d find some way to save me.” 

His rugged face softened with pain. “My dear,” he 
said, “don’t you know that if there were any way in the 
world, any sacrifice-” 

“Yes; I know; I know! I’m sorry. That was a rot¬ 
ten thing to say.” 

“You’ve taken it all like such a good sport.” 

“I’m trying. Let’s not talk of it any more. Let’s talk 
of the girls. Bob, how much is there to heredity?” 

“Oh, Lord! Ask me to square the circle. Or make 
the fifth hole in one. Or something easy.” 

“I was just thinking. Who’s going to look after them? 
Ralph won’t be of much use. He’s too detached.” 

“Well, the family physician can be of service in some 
ways,” he said slowly. “Particularly if he chances to 
be a family friend, too.” 

“Would you?” she cried eagerly. “They’ll be a hand- 



FLAMING YOUTH 


17 


ful. Any modern girl is. But I’d rest easier, knowing 
you were on the job. Speaking of resting, I had rather 
a rotten night last night.” 

“What were you doing in the evening?” 

“We had a little poker party here in the room.” 

He shrugged his heavy shoulders. “If you won’t pay 
any heed to your doctor’s orders-” 

“You know I won’t.” 

“Then you’ve got to pay the piper.” 

“Haven’t you got any tiling that will make me sleep?” 

“Were the pains bad?” 

“Pretty stiff. Will they get worse?” 

“I’m afraid so, my dear.” 

“More dope, then, please.” 

“Dangerous.” 

“Well?” She smiled up into his face, pleadingly, 
temptingly. “Well, Bob?” Her voice dropped. “What’s 
the difference? Since it’s a hopeless case. Don’t be an 
inquisitor and sentence me to torture in the name of your 
god, Science,” she whispered. 

He yielded. “All right. But you’ll stand it as long 
as you can?” 

“Good old Bob I” she murmured. She reached for his 
hand, twined her fingers around it, nestled it into her 
firm and rounded neck. Then she laughed. 

“Well?” he queried. 

“Association of ideas,” she answered. “I was think¬ 
ing of Cary Scott.” 

He winced and drew his hand away. “What of Cary 
Scott?” 

“If he doesn’t come back pretty soon, what a joke it 
will be on him!” 



CHAPTER II 


The Fentriss house stood high on a knoll overlook¬ 
ing the Country Club which constituted Dorrisdale’s 
chief attraction as a suburb. Mona Fentriss had built it 
with a legacy of $25,000 left to her just before Patricia’s 
birth, and Ralph had put in the $15,000 necessary to 
complete the work after the architect’s original estimate 
had been exhausted, leaving the place still unfinished by 
one wing, all the decorations, and most of the plumbing. 
The extra cost was due largely to the constantly alter¬ 
ing schemes of Mona. She wished her house “just so,” 
and just so she finally had it from the little conservatory 
off the side hallway to the comfortable servants’ suite 
on the third floor. If the result was, architecturally, 
a plate of hash, as Ralph called it, nevertheless the house 
was particularly easy to live in. 

To Mona Fentriss belonged the credit for this. What 
she had of conscience was enlisted in her domestic econ¬ 
omy. As Ralph Fentriss’s wife she might be casually 
unfaithful. As mistress of his household she was im¬ 
peccable. The effortless seductiveness of her personality 
established its special atmosphere throughout the place. It 
made the servants her devoted and unwearying aids, and 
broadly speaking, a household is much what the servants 
make it. People gravitate naturally to a well-run place. 
Liic seems so suave and easy there. Guests of all ages 
came and went at Holiday Knoll, mostly men. Mona 
cared little for women, and her own strong magnetism for 

men had been inherited by her two grown daughters. 

18 


FLAMING YOUTH 


19 


There was no special selectiveness about the company. 
All that was required of them was that they should be 
superficially presentable and contribute something of 
amusement or entertainment to the composite life of the 
menage. At least nine-tenths of them were making love 
to Constance or Mary Delia or Mona herself, openly or 
surreptitiously as the case might be. 

It made a pleasantly restless and stimulating atmos¬ 
phere. In the city itself there would have been criticism 
of the easy standards; indeed there was more or less 
which drifted out to the Knoll. But judgments in the 
suburbs are kindlier. And Dorrisdale is quite fashion¬ 
able enough to establish its own standards. 

Any week-end would find half a dozen or more cars 
bunched on the driveway, having brought their quota of 
pleasure-seeking youth out from New York or from 
Philadelphia or Baltimore or Princeton. The girls had 
carte blanche, within reasonable limits, for invitations, 
which they were careful not to abuse. A few errors in 
judgment had reacted unpleasantly not only upon them¬ 
selves but upon their undesirable guests. Mona Pentriss 
could act with decision and dignity within her own walls. 
Her social discrimination was keen if not rigid, and she 
possessed a blighting gift of sarcasm, mainly imitative, 
the most deadly kind used against the young. Neither of 
the girls was likely ever to forget her imitation of Con¬ 
nie’s friend from Minneapolis whose method of handling 
a fork, according to Mrs. Fentriss’s theory, had been 
derived from bayonet practice in camp; nor her presen¬ 
tation of a steamship acquaintance of Dee’s who had too 
pathetically bewailed his losses at bridge. 

Partly from theory, partly as a trouble-saving device, 
the mother seldom attempted any exercise of direct 
authority upon the children. A system of self-govern- 


20 


FLAMING YOUTH 


ment was established, or, rather, encouraged to grow into 
being. It was ordained that each of the girls should 
have her own room to hold like a castle, into which not 
even the parents might intrude unbidden, and for which 
the occupant was held responsible. Constance’s room was 
luxurious, lazy, filled with photographs mainly of groups 
in which her charming face was always central. The 
special mark of Mary Delia’s was its white and airy 
kemptness. Patricia’s was a mess of clothing and odds 
and ends, tossed hither and thither and left to lie as they 
fell until a temporary access of orderliness inspired the 
child to clean up. It suggested a room in which no win¬ 
dow was opened at night. Fentriss called it the hurrah’s 
nest. 

Through this feminine environment he moved like a 
tolerant but semi-detached presiding genius. His profes¬ 
sion as consulting engineer took him early to the city and 
that, or something else, often kept him late. Being a 
considerate though rather selfish person, he invariably 
telephoned when detained over dinner time, which made 
the less difference in that there were always two or three 
men dropping in after golf, hopeful of an invitation to 
stay: Harry Mercer or the Grant twins, or Sam Gracie, 
or one of the Selfridges, father or son. Envious mothers 
whispered that Mrs. Fentriss was trying to catch Emslie 
Selfridge for Constance, and that it might not be as good 
a match as she supposed; things weren’t going any too 
well at the Selfridge factory since the strike. They also 
wondered acidly that Ralph Fentriss was so easy as to 
let his pretty wife go about so much with Steve Selfridge, 
who was almost old enough to be her father, it was true, 
but whose reputation was that of a decidedly unwithered 
age. It would no more have occurred to Fentriss to raise 
objections over Mona’s going where she pleased, with 


FLAMING YOUTH 21 

whom she pleased than it would have occurred to her to 
ask his permission. All that was past long ago. 

The outside member of the family was Robert Oster- 
hout. He lived near by in a small studio-bungalow where 
he conducted delicate and obscure experiments in the 
therapy of the ductless glands. Thrice a week he lec¬ 
tured at the University, for he had already won a repu¬ 
tation in his own specialty. Having inherited a sufficient 
fortune, he was letting his private practice dwindle to a 
point where presently the Fentriss family would be about 
all there was left of it. Into and out of the house on the 
knoll he wandered, casual, unobtrusive, never in the way, 
always welcome, contributing a quiet, solid background to 
the kaleidoscopic pattern of its existence. In the most 
innocent of senses he was Vami du maison. If he was and 
had for years been in love with Mona, the fact never 
made a ripple in the affectionate friendliness of their 
relations nor in the outward placidity of his life. It was 
accepted as part of the natural scheme of things. Fen¬ 
triss recognized it, quite without resentment. Mona won¬ 
dered at times whether Constance and Mary Delia were 
not aware of it—not that it would have made any differ¬ 
ence. She herself made little account of it, yet she would 
sorely have missed the stable, enduring, inexpressive devo¬ 
tion had it lapsed. Bob was the intellectual outlet for 
her restless, fervent, exigent nature, too complex to be 
satisfied with physical and emotional gratifications alone. 
One could talk to Bob; God knows, there were few 
enough others in her set with any understanding beyond 
the current chatter of the day! After her sentence was 
pronounced she talked to him even more frankly than 
theretofore. 

“If Ralph had died, Bob, I’d probably have married 

you.” 


22 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Would you?” 

“What do you mean by that ? That you wouldn’t have 

married me?” 

“I’d probably have done as you wished. I always do.” 

“So you do, old dear 1 That’s the reason I’d have mar¬ 
ried you. That, and to keep you in the family, where 
you belong.” 

“I’ll keep myself in the family, Mona, if you want me 
there.” 

“But Ralph didn’t die,” she pursued. “I’m going ta 
instead. You can’t marry Ralph.” 

“Not very well.” 

“But you might marry the girls.” 

“All of ’em?” 

“Connie, I think. She’s most like me.” 

“She isn’t nearly as pretty as you.” 

Mona blew him a kiss. “She’s much, much prettier. 
Don’t be so prejudiced. And she’s very intelligent, for 
twenty-two.” 

“About half my age.” 

“Oh, she’d catch up fast enough. She’s quite mature.” 

“Much too attractive for an old husband, thank you. 
That way trouble lies—as you know 1” 

“Thanks, yourself!” She thrust out her tongue at 
him in an impudent, childish grimace. “Perhaps you’d 
prefer Mary Delia.” 

“I understand Dee better than I do Connie.” 

“Do you? It’s more than I do. She’s devilish frank 
about other people but she never gives herself away.” 

“That’s what I like about her.” 

“You really are quite chummy with her, aren’t you?” 
said the mother, looking at him curiously.. “But that’s 
because you’re so much older. She doesn’t care much 
about men really.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 23 

“She’s unawakened. There’s hot blood under that cool 
skin.” 

“I wonder what makes you think that?” 

“Oh, a medically trained man notices little things.” 

“So does a woman. But I haven’t seen- Has Dee 

begun to awake?” 

“Oh, no! She’s quite unaware of herself in that way. 
Very likely she won’t until after she’s married.” 

“After? Won’t that be a little late?” 

“It’s the first awakening a lot of women have. And 
a harsh one for some.” 

“What a lot of unpleasant things doctors know about 
life!” 

“Life’s got its unpleasant phases.” 

“Particularly for women. . . . Yet I’m glad I’ve been 
a woman.” A little, sensuous quiver passed over her ten¬ 
derly modelled lips. She smiled, sighed, and reverted to 
her other thought. “But you’re going to have your hands 
full with the Fentrisses. Really, you’d do better if you 
married one.” 

“Perhaps I shouldn’t do as well. I might be too taken 
up with the one.” 

She darted a glance at him, full of shrewd questioning 
with a touch of suspicion. “You could care for Dee,” 
she interpreted. “I’d be more flattered if it were Con¬ 
nie.” She pressed an electric button. To the trim maid 
who appeared she said, “Send Miss Dee here, please, 
Mollie.” 

“What are you going to do, Mona?” demanded Oster- 
hout in some alarm, for he knew the devastating frank¬ 
ness with which she was wont to deal with those nearest 
her. 

“Wait and see.” 

There was a rhythmic, swift footfall on the stairs, the 



24 FLAMING YOUTH 

door was thrown open, and Mary Delia Fentriss swung 
in upon them. 

“Hello, mother!” she said. “Hail, Lord Roberts! 
What’s the summons?” 

Her bearing attested poise, careless self-confidence, and 
a brusque and ready good humour. She was tall, rounded, 
supple, browned, redolent of physical expression. At 
first sight one knew that here was a girl whose body 
would exhale freshness, whose lips would be cool, whose 
breath would be sweet, whose voice would be even, whose 
senses and nerves would be controlled. A student of 
humankind might have appreciated in her the unafraid 
honesty and directness which so often go with the con¬ 
sciousness of physical strength, in women as well as men. 
Her nickname in the family was Candida. She was not 
beautiful; not even pretty, by strict standards. But 
there was about her a sort of careless splendour. 

“Been playing golf?” asked her mother. 

“Yes. Cantered in with a fort 3 ^-seven.” 

“Nice going! How would you like to marry Bob?” 

Neither the expression nor the attitude of the girl 
altered, but her cool and thoughtful eyes turned upon 
Osterhout. “Has his lordship been making proposals 
for me?” 

“No; I haven’t!” barked the gentleman in the case. 

“Watson, the strait-jacket! He’s growing violent.” 

“It was wholly my idea,” proffered Mona. 

“I thought Bobs was your special property. Why 
mark him down? It isn’t bargain day.” 

“He’s a fairly good bargain, though,” pointed out her 
mother. 

“Don’t mind me if you want to discuss my good points,” 
said Osterhout, lighting a cigarette and seating himself 
upon the window sill. 


FLAMING YOUTH 


25 


“X don’t,” said Mary Delia. “Let’s consider him as a 
market proposition. His age is against him. You’re 
forty, aren’t you, Bobs? . . . He doesn’t squirm, mother. 
That’s a bad sign; shows he’s reached the age where he 
doesn’t care. Or is it a good sign, showing his self-con¬ 
trol?” 

“Dee, I’d beat you if I married you.” 

Her eyes lightened. “Would you? I believe you’d try.” 
With a bound she was upon him. One arm crooked under 
his shoulder, the heel of the other fist was thrust under 
his chin. “Improved jit,” she panted. “You’d have your 
work cut out.” 

There was a quick shift, a blending of the two figures, 
and the slighter was bent backward almost to the floor. 
“Give up?” demanded Osterhout, his face close above the 
laughing lips. 

“Yes. Lord, you’re quick! Thought I had you. Take 
your penalty and let me up.” 

Ignoring the invitation he set her in a chair and re¬ 
stored his deranged necktie. “I’ll apologise for the forty,” 
said Dee. “You’re not so old and feeble! To resume, 
as we say when serious; you’re homely as a scalded 
pup-” 

“Thank you!” 

“—but it’s a nice homely. You’ve got a lamb of a 
disposition. And money enough. Haven’t you?” 

“Enough for me.” 

“How passionately he pleads his cause! You play a 
nasty round of golf, too; I mustn’t forget that. But— 
no. I don’t think I would. Not even if you asked me.” 

“What’s the obstacle, Dee?” 

“Well, for one thing, there’s Jimmy James.” 

“What!” 

“Quite so,” said the girl sedately. 



FLAMING YOUTH 


26 

“You’re engaged to James?” 

“We haven’t got that far yet. But I’ve got him on 
the run.” 

“Dee!” expostulated her mother, laughing. 

“Does he know of your honourable intentions?” queried 
Osterhout. 

“He hasn’t expressed his own yet. But he will.” 

“When?” 

“Next time I kiss him.” 

“Next time, eh? How many times will that make?” 

“Haven’t counted, Grandpa,” mocked the girl. “We 
haven’t pulled many petting parties, though.” 

“Well, I’m good-and-be-damned,” muttered Osterhout. 

“Modern stuff, Bob,” remarked Mona. 

“Being an ancient fossil, I’d say dangerous stuff witK 
a fellow like Jameson James.” 

“Not with a girl like me,” returned Dee with superb 
assurance. “Bee-lieve muh, I’ve got a hand on the emer- 
gency brake every minute.” 

Osterhout, who had returned to his window seat, gave a 
sharp exclamation. 

“What’s the matter now?” 

He rubbed his cheek, growling. A hoarse, childish voice 
from below, which had in it some echo of Mona Fentriss’s 
lyric and alluring tones, served to answer the question: 

“Where did I hit you, old Bobs?” 

“It’s the Scrub,” said Dee. 

“Don’t you call me ‘Bobs,’ you young devil.” 

“Oh, all right 1 Doctor Bobs. Come down. I’ve got a 
fer-rightful gasK in my knee.” 

“Well, don’t show it to the world. I’ll be there im¬ 
mediately.” 

“If you want to be the family benefactor,” said Mary 


FLAMING YOUTH 2% 

Delia as he was leaving, “marry Pat. Nobody else ever 
will.” 

“You’re a liar!” came the hoarse voice from outside. 
There was a pause as for consideration. “A stinkin ? 
liar,” it concluded with conviction. 

“Pat!” called her mother. 

“Oh, very well! But I bet I’m married before I’m Dee’s 
age. And to a better man than Jimmy James. He’s a 
chaser.” 

“We’ve got to send that child away to school,” said 
Mona Fentriss in amused dismay as the door closed be¬ 
hind Osterhout. “She’s growing up any old way, and 
she seems to know everything that’s going on. . . . Dee, 
are you really going to marry Jimmy James?” 

“I think so. Any objections?” 

“Well, Ada Clare, you know.” 

“He’s through with her.” 

“She’s the kind that men don’t get through with so 
readily. It’s gone pretty far.” 

“It’s gone the limit probably. Well, I never thought 
Jimmy was President of the Purity League, Mother.” 

“Do you really care for him, Dee?” 

“Of course I do. I don’t mean that he gives me an 
awful thrill. Nobody does.” 

“Perhaps the right man would.” 

“Then I haven’t seen him yet'. Mother,” she turned 
her cool regard upon Mona, “tell me about it.” 

“About what?” 

“The thrill. The real thrill. You know.” 

Mona’s colour deepened. “You’re a queer child, Dee. 
There are soxne things a woman has to find out for her¬ 
self.” 

“Or get some man to teach her,” supplied the girl 




28 FLAMING YOUTH 

thoughtfully. “The whole thing’s mostly bluff, I think. 
Men are queer things. I could laugh my head off at 
Jimmy sometimes.” 

“That’s a good safeguard.” 

“Yes; but I don’t need it. . . . Mother, aren’t we go¬ 
ing to pull a big party this spring?” 

“Of course. And we ought to do it pretty soon, too.” 

“What makes you say that so queerly?” 

“Nothing,” answered Mona hastily. “I was just 
thinking.” 

For though she was up and about again, she knew that 
she was weakening under the heart attacks which she 
endured with silent fortitude, due partly to natural pride, 
partly to her belief that a complaining woman lost all 
charm for those about her, winning only the poor sub¬ 
stitute of pity instead of admiration. Upon Dr. Oster- 
hout she had imposed silence; she was determined that 
her household should know nothing so long as conceal¬ 
ment was possible. In her way she was an unselfish 
woman. 

She was quite aware that this would be the last of her 
parties in the house on the knoll. 

Pat’s voice floated upward in tones of lamentation. 
“Oh, damn it, Bobs! Go easy, can’t you? That stuff’s 
like fire.” 

“Patricia’s fifteen,” reflected the mother. “I’ll enter 
her at the Sisterhood School next fall.” 


CHAPTER III 


The party was a Bingo. Before midnight that had 
been settled to the satisfaction of everyone. The music, 
good at the outset, soon become irresistible. (A drink 
all around every seven numbers was the Fentriss pre¬ 
scription for the musicians; expensive but worth it.) 
The punch was very special. Several of its masculine 
devotees had already faded, and one girl had been quietly 
spirited to an upper room, there to be disrobed and de- 
spirited. There was much drifting in and out of the 
French windows to the darkness of the lawn, and plaintive 
inquiries for missing partners were prevalent. Lovely, 
flushed, youthful, regnant in her own special queendom, 
Mona Fentriss sat in the midst of a circle of the older 
men, bandying stories with them in voices which were 
discreetly lowered when any cf the youngsters drew near. 
It was the top of the time. 

Upstairs in her remote bed Patricia sat with her pil¬ 
lows banked behind her, her knees propping her chin, her 
angry eyes staring into the dark. The strong rhythms 
of the music, barbaric, excitant, harshly sensuous, 
throbbed upward, stirring her to dim and uninterpretable 
hungers. 

“Damn! Damn! Damn!” she whispered in shivering 
wrath. 

r 

She had been banished from even the earliest part of 
the festivities. It was mean. It was rotten. It was 
stinkin’ rotten. Why should she be treated so? She 

wasn’t a baby. She wouldn’t stand it! 

29 


30 


FLAMING YOUTH 


Leaping from bed she ran to her tumbled clothes, began 
feverishly to put them on. In undergarments and stock¬ 
ings she crept across to Dee’s room, listened and entered. 
This was gross violation of the law of the household. 
But Pat was desperate. Selecting a pink dinner dress 
rather high-cut for Dee, she held it against her half- 
developed body, decided that it would do, ran back with 
her booty to her own den. Putting it on before the glass 
she became unpleasantly conscious of several pimples on 
her face. She was always having pimples! The others 
never had them. She wondered why, resentfully. Should 
she pick the one at the side of her nose? Or would that 
only make it the more unsightly? She decided for the 
heroic method, performed a clumsy operation with a pin, 
and perceived at once that she must have some powder. 
This time it was Connie’s room that she invaded, and 
while she was about it she found and added a touch of 
colour. It was by no means the height of artistry, but 
Pat approved it as eminently satisfactory. She did not 
wholly approve Dee’s dress. There was too much of it 
in important spots. She meditated padding, but did not 
know how it was done. Or—dared she go back and get 
a scantier frock? Contemplating her boyish contours 
she realised that it would not do. 

“Flat like a board,” she muttered disparagingly. “I’m 
bunched all in the wrong places.” 

That the gown which fitted Dee’s slender strength to 
perfection should oppress Pat across her round little 
stomach, struck her as an unjust infliction of fate, instead 
of the proper penalty of gluttony, which it was. The 
maltreated pimple—another sign and symbol of her un¬ 
restrained appetite—still bled a little and was obviously 
angry. She staunched it impatiently. The others, she 
decided, would do as they were. Not unskillfully she 




FLAMING YOUTH 31 

touched the area around them with little dabs of Mme. 
Lablanche’s Rose-skin. 

“I’m going to have one dance,” she decided, “if they 
send me to jail.” 

The back stairs and a side window gave her unobserved 
exit to the odorous shelter of a syringa. 

“I’ll wait until I can catch Bobs,” she ruminated. “He’ll 
dance with me—old bear! But first I’ll do a little scout- 

• 99 

mg.” 

She peeked into the big living room where most of the 
dancing was in progress. As was invariably the rule at 
Holiday Knoll, men held the superiority of numbers, and 
therefore, girls that of position. Every girl had a part¬ 
ner. To the ungrown waif outside of fairyland the 
dancers seemed ethereal beings, moving in a radiant and 
unattainable world. How beautifully the girls were 
dressed! How attractive the men looked! 

“I wish I was pretty,” mourned Pat. She thought for¬ 
lornly of her blotchy skin. “I never will be, though.” 
Then she recalled the deep, eager lustre of her eyes as 
seen in the glass, and how one of the boys at school had 
once made awkward and admiring phrases about them. 
She had not liked that particular boy, but she was grate¬ 
ful for the phrases. Maybe if she paid more attention 
to herself she might come to be attractive like her lovely 
mother. No; that was too much to hope; never like 
her mother, nor like Constance, who was just then whirled 
by in the arms of one of the New York guests, all aglow 
with languorous triumph, easily the beauty of the party. 
Perhaps like Dee. Lots of men were crazy about Dee. 
Would any man ever be crazy about her, wondered 
Pat. . . . Wouldn’t she look a smear if she did venture 
on the floor among all those human flowers? She left 
her window to prowl further. 


32 


FLAMING YOUTH 


The glass door of the breakfast room gave her a view of 
the proceedings within. Sprawled upon the tiles five of 
the youthful local element were intent upon the dice which 
one of them had just rolled toward a central heap of 
silver and bills. 

“Seven! I lose again,” said the thrower cheerily. 
“Who’ll stand for hiking the limit to a dollar?” 

Opposite Pat’s vantage point sprawled Selden Thorpe, 
son of the local rector. Pat knew they had not much 
means and, marking the pale, strained face of the boy, 
wished with misgivings that he wouldn’t. The misgivings 
vanished when she heard him say: 

“I’m an easy hundred ahead so I can’t kick. Let ’er 
go.” 

She stepped back into the darkness to round the con¬ 
servatory wing and brushed the mudguard of a lightless 
limousine. A girl’s voice strained, tremulous, and laugh¬ 
ing lent caution to her retreating steps; but she stopped 
within listening distance. 

“Don’t, Freddie! I’ll have to go in if you-” 

“Oh, come, Ada! Be a sport.” 

“Do behave yourself. Get me another drink.” 

“All right.” 

As the man stepped out, Pat shrank behind the car. 
She had recognized the girl’s voice as that of Ada Clare, 
who had the reputation of being an indiscriminate 
“necker.” Pat passed on. But that whisper from within 
the limousine, with its defensive, nervous, eager, stimu¬ 
lated effect, troubled the eavesdropper with strange, dis¬ 
turbing surmises. She wanted, yet feared to return and 
wait until Fred Browning, a man of thirty, well-liked in 
the neighbourhood, not the less perhaps because of his 
reputation as a “goer,” came back with the desired drink. 
What would be the next step in the unseen drama? A 
little stir of fear drove Pat onward. She stopped 



FLAMING YOUTH 33 

abruptly at the end of the conservatory as she heard her 
mother’s voice within. 

“Oh, Sid, dear! I almost wish I hadn’t told you.” 

Sid! That was Sidney Rathbone, a Baltimorean, much 
given to running over for week-ends. To Pat’s mind he 
was stricken in years, being nearly forty, but the most 
distinguished looking (thus her mentally italicised char¬ 
acterisation) person she had ever seen and distantly 
adored. Furthermore there was a quietly knightly devo¬ 
tion in his attitude toward the beautiful Mrs. Fentriss 
which enlisted the submerged romanticism of the child’s 
mind. Now she hardly recognised the usually smooth and 
gentle tones characteristic of him as he replied: 

“My God, Mona! I can’t believe it. I won’t believe 
it.” 

“Poor boy! It’s true, though.” 

“What does Osterhout know about it! He’s no diagnos¬ 
tician. You must come to Baltimore and see Finney or 
Earle-” 

“It’s no use.” 

What Rathbone next said the listener could not make 
out, but Mona answered very gently: 

“No, Sid, dear. Not again. That’s all over. I couldn’t 
now. You understand.” And then the man’s broken 
voice: 

“Yes; I understand, dearest. But-” 

“Oh, Sid! Please don’t cry. I can’t bear it.” 

Pat blundered on into the darkness, rather appalled. 
What in the name of bewilderment did that mean? Mr. 
Rathbone crying! And her mother’s voice was so sad. 
Though she did not care much for her mother beyond 
a lively admiration of her charm and beauty, Pat expe¬ 
rienced a distinct chill. It was followed by a surge of 
exultation; she was certainly seeing life to-night! And 
then came the climax. A blithe voice at her elbow said: 




84 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Hello! Who are you?” 

“Sh—sh-sh-sh!” she warned in startled sibilance. 

“Shush goes if you say so. Not dancing?” 

“No. They wouldn’t let me,” said Pat mournfully. 

“Who wouldn’t?” 

“The family.” 

“Snoutrage,” declared the stranger economically 
“You’re one of the family, are you?” 

“Yes. I’m the kid. I hate it.” 

“Cinderella; yes? The lovely but wicked sisters— 
they’re peaches, too.” He spoke clearly but a little dis*» 
jointedly. “But you’re not rigged for the part. You’ve 
got your regal rags on.” 

“They’re not mine. They’re my sister’s. I sneaked 
’em.” 

“Snappy child!” he laughed. “Let’s have a look.” 

He moved closer to her. A wale of light fell across his 
face. He was short and fair with a winsome, laughing 
mouth, and candid eyes. Drooping her chin Pat studied 
him covertly and decided that he was a winner. She her¬ 
self was in the shadow; he could see little but contour. 
But the rich hoarseness of the voice pleased him. 

“I’m glad I found you,” he murmured. 

Thrilling to his tone, all that she could find to say was: 

“Don’t speak so loud.” 

Naturally he took this as an invitation, and, moving 
still closer, felt for her hand in the darkness. Her fingers 
twined willingly within his. Instead of alarming her, his 
touch gave her confidence. 

“What are you doing out here?” she asked. 

“Cooling off. The family brew’s got quite a kick in it.” 

“Has it? Get me some.” 

“You’re too young.” 

“Don’t be hateful.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


35 


“What’ll you give me for it?” he teased. 

It was the first spur that her instinct of conscious seduc¬ 
tiveness had ever known. She replied instantly: 

'‘Anything.” 

“You’re on. Wait for me right there.” 

While he was gone, a long time as it seemed to her, she 
stood surging with an exultant inner turmoil. A man 
and a girl passed close to her, unseeing in the bar of light. 
The girl’s eyes wore a strange, sleepy expression as if the 
lids were almost too heavy to hold open. The man’s 
shoulder was pressed close upon her. They disappeared. 
Strange scents of the night crept into Pat’s brain; made 
her remember things she had never known. The music, 
softened through intervening walls, was pleading sensu¬ 
ously, urging upon her something mysterious and desir¬ 
able. She felt her nerves like strung wires already 
tingling with electric forces but awaiting the supreme 
shock. 

“Drink, pretty creature!” The gay, insinuating, mirth¬ 
ful voice was close to her. 

“You’ve only half filled it,” she complained, taking the 
glass. 

“Must have spilled some. In such a hurry to get back 
to you,” he explained. “There’s plenty more where it 
came from if you like it.” 

“I don’t,” she gasped. The liquid, of which she had 
taken a generous swallow, stung in her throat. She 
poured the rest out upon the ground. “Here,” she said 
holding out the glass to him. 

His fingers met hers again. The glass fell and crunched 
beneath his foot as he stepped to her. She was hardly 
cognisant of his arm drawing her. Rather what she felt 
was some irresistible power compelling her to itself. The 
face of the youth, still gay with laughter, drew down 


36 


FLAMING YOUTH 


upon hers, closer, closer, changed, seemed to become dimly 
luminous. Her arms, without volition, crept upward to 
his shoulders. She was incongruously and painfully con¬ 
scious of something pressing into her bosom, one of his 
pearl shirt-studs, and drew away from it slightly. He 
bent his head after her. And then, as their lips met and 
merged—the shock! 

She went limp under it. 

After a long, long minute in which were blended the 
pulsations of the music, the undermining odours of the 
night, the look of the passing girl’s eyes (how heavy were 
her own now!), the memory of that broken whisper over¬ 
heard in the limousine, and the surge of the blood in he^ 
veins, she heard him say: 

“Let’s go.” 

“Where?” 

“I’ve got my car here.” 

She was silent, deeply, passively acquiescent to his will. 
Misconstruing her speechlessness, he urged: 

“Come on, sweetie! We’ll take a fifty-mile-an-hour dip 
into the landscape. The little boat can go some.” 

“I’ll have to get a wrap.” 

“Take my coat.” 

His arm tightened, guiding her. She lifted a hungry 
face. He bent again when a door opened shedding a 
broad ray of light upon them. Against the glaring back¬ 
ground moved Constance, a vision of witchery in her filmy 
gown, followed by Emslie Self ridge. 

“Pat!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?” 

Before the confused girl could reply, her escort came 
briskly to her rescue. “I caught it peeking behind a 
bush,” he explained, “and it wasn’t a bur-gu-lar after all. 
So I’m taking it in to see what it is and whether it can 
dance.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 37 

“It’s my kid sister,” said Constance. “Mother will be 
pleased!” 

“Are yon going to tell her?” demanded Pat. 

“I certainly am.” 

“Then I may as well have my dance before you find 
her,” declared the culprit calmly. 

“The fourteenth, a foxy little trot; with Mr. Warren 
Graves,” put in her escort cheerily. He drew her arm 
through his own where it nestled gratefully. 

Armoured though he was in the careless self-confidence 
of youth, young Mr. Graves winced as his partner stood 
revealed under the full glare of the lights. She looked 
so awfully and awkwardly young! Her hair was so awry, 
her gown so ill-fitted, her skin so splotchy. But there 
was magic in the long, slanted, shy, trustful eyes look¬ 
ing into his own, and the tingling excitation of her kiss 
was still in his blood. Moreover he had had a steady 
succession of drinks. 

“How old are you?” he asked in her ear as her cheek 
pressed close to his. 

“Seventeen,” she lied glibly. 

“Sub-deb stuff,” he laughed. “I love ’em young. You 
can dance, too. Can I have the next?” 

“There won’t be any next,” said Pat tragically. 
“Here’s Mother.” 

“Oh, Lord!” said Warren Graves. “Let me do the 
talking.” 

But no talking was called for. Mona Fentriss swept 
down upon her truant daughter, caught her in a laugh¬ 
ing embrace, slapped one hot cheek, kissed the other, and 
delivered her verdict! 

“Back to bed with you! Quick! How did you ever 
get out?” 

“Can’t I have just one more turn,” pleaded PaJ, 


38 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Not a step. Where did this roost-robber”—she indi¬ 
cated Graves—“find you?” 

“I was looking on and wanting in,” replied the dismal 
and thwarted Pat. 

“Wait three years, until you’re seventeen. Away!” 

“Let me escort you to your—er—baby-carriage,” said 
the youth with an elaborate bow. 

The feeble witticism, meant only to cover his own sense 
of being at a loss, stabbed Pat. She averted her angry 
and tearful eyes as they crossed the floor together. 

“I hate you,” she muttered. 

“Pm crazy about you,” he retorted close to her ear. 

Instantly she was radiant again. “Good-night,” she 
said softly and ran up the stairs. 

The turn of the landing hid her from view. But, after 
a moment’s struggle with herself against doubt, she 
stopped and leaned out over the rail. There he stood 
with the blithe expectancy of his face upturned. Queer 
looking, unkempt, ill-dressed she might be, and hardly 
more than a child at that, but the glamour of her youth 
and her passion held him. 

“Don’t forget me,” he pleaded under his breath. 

She nodded. Forget him! With the fervent assurance 
of the neophyte she was sure that she never would, never 
could forget him and the moment which he had deified 
for her. And herein her inexperience was a true mentor. 
For, whatever else may pass from her crowded memories, 
a girl does not forget her first kiss. 

Pat had been mulcted of that dance which she had 
rebelliously promised herself. But there was compensa¬ 
tion in overflowing measure. 

She had had her taste of life, 


CHAPTER IV 


VAGRANT &il*S from the window of the small library 
playfully stirred the bright tendrils on Constance Fen- 
triss’s neck. The girl was a picture of unconscious grace 
and delight as she sat, with her great, heavy-lashed eyes 
fixed in speculation, her curving lips a little drawn down, 
her gracious, girlish figure relaxed in the deep chair. 
Across the room Mary Delia was skimming hopefully the 
pages of Town Topics for scandals about people she knew. 
She lifted her head and asked carelessly: 

“What doing, Con?” 

“Figuring out a letter.” 

“Who to?” (Mary Delia’s higher education, inclusive 
of “correct” English, had cost something more than ten 
thousand dollars.) 

“A certain party.” This was formula, current in their 
set and deemed to possess a mildly satiric flavour. 

“Oh, verra well!” (Meaning “Don’t tell if you don’t 
want to.”) 

“It’s to Warren Graves, if you want to know.” 

“Your Princeton paragon? Have you got something 
going there?” 

“I’m going to give him hell.” 

“What for? I thought he was one of your best bets.” 

“For acting like a Mick Saturday night.” 

“What did he pull? A pickle?” 

“A petting party with Pat.” 

“No! Did he?” Dee cast aside the professional organ 
of scandal in favour of a more immediate interest. “How 
do you know?” 


39 


40 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Trapped ’em. He put up a good front. Acted like he 
expected to get away with it.” (Constance’s school, also 
highly expensive, had specialised in “finish of speech and 
manner.”) 

Dee laughed. “That bratling! He must have been lit.” 

“Emslie said so. He was with me when we walked into 
’em.” 

“As per usual. What was his view ?” 

“He said the Scrub ought to be spanked and sent to 
bed.” 

“Some job!” opined her sister. “She’s starting in early. 
When did you have your first real flutter. Con?” 

“Not at that age,” returned the elder. “And not with 
that kind of a face.” 

Dee reflected shrewdly that Connie was a little sore over 
the young man’s defection. “It must have been dark for 
Graves to take her on,” she agreed. 

“It was, till we opened the door on ’em. They were 
clinched all right. Dam’ little fool!” 

“Better go easy with the letter,” advised Dee carelessly. 
“He’ll think it’s green-eyed stuff.” 

“Not from what I’m going to give him. He tried the 
half-nelson on me earlier in the evening and got turned 
down.” 

“Well, I had to tell him the strangle hold was barred, 
myself,” remarked Dee. “He must have had a busy 
evening.” 

“Thinks he’s a boa-constrictor, does he?” commented 
the beauty viciously. “He’ll think he’s an apple-worm 
when he reads my few well-chosen words.” 

“Cordially invited not to come back?” 

“Something of that sort.” 

“That was a pretty husky punch, though,” mused Dee. 
“Con, you don’t suppose he fed the Scrub any of it?” 


I 


FLAMING YOUTH 


41 


“Yes, he did.” 

“Dirty work!” Lighting a cigarette Dee took a few 
puffs, but without inhaling. “Going to tell Mona?” The 
two older girls habitually spoke of their mother and some¬ 
times to her by her given name. 

“I don’t know. What dp you think?” 

“I think she’d laugh.” 

“Dad wouldn’t.” 

“Dad’s old. Mona’s one of our kind. She’s as modern 
as jazz.” 

“Dad may be old but it hasn’t slowed him up so much, 
yet. He was the life of the party.” 

“Oh, Dad’s all right. I’m for him, myself. But he’s 
all for Pat. There might be fireworks if he knew she 
was starting in this early.” 

“There were never any about Mona.” 

“Meaning ?” 

“Well, Sid Rathbone. And Tom Merrill. And a few 
others.” 

“She doesn’t interfere with his little amusements, either, 
if you come to that. Have you noticed anything about 
her lately?” 

“Yes. She looks like a ghost in the mornings.” 

“Bobs has been trying to get her to put on the brakes.” 

“Funny old Bobs! He’s pippy on you, isn’t he. Dee?” 

“Me! I should say not. It’s Mona.” 

“Can you blame him? With her war paint on she’s 
got us both faded.” 

“Sometimes when I catch him looking at her with that 
poodle dog expression of his, I wonder whether there’s 
something really wrong with her.” 

“Probably it’s just the pace. What’ll we be like at 
her age, if we last that long?” Constance’s soft mouth 
hardened as she seated herself at the desk and scratched 


42 


FLAMING YOUTH 


off the letter which she had been meditating. “There!” 
she observed at the close. “That will tell Mr. Warren 
Graves where he gets off.” 

“What about Pat? Someone ought to tell her where 
she gets off.” 

“I don’t know why they keep her around anyway,” 
said Constance discontentedly. “She ought to have been 
sent away to school last year.” 

“God help the school! She’ll give it an education.” 

“Going to the club to-night?” asked the elder after a 
pause. 

“No.” 

“I thought you had a date with Jimmy James for all 
the Saturday dances.” 

“So did he,” replied Dee calmly. “He was getting too 
proprietary. So I turned him down.” 

“War is hell,” observed her sister with apparent ir¬ 
relevance. 

“Besides, de Severin is coming over from Washington 
for an early round of golf.” 

“So that’s it. Paul de Severin could give me quite a 
thrill if he went at it right.” 

“Not me. I’ve never seen the man that could, either. 
Something must have been left out of my make-up when 
I was built.” 

“Sometimes I wish it had been left out of mine,” said 
the beauty. “And other times,” she added gaily, “I 
don’t. By the way, I’m likely to be in pretty late. So 
don’t let Dad lock me out, will you?” 

“I thought they still pulled the midnight rule for the 
Saturday night dances.” 

“So they do. But the Grants are having a small-and- 
early afterward. Somebody slipped Will Grant a case 


FLAMING YOUTH 43 

of Bacardi.” She sealed her letter with a thump and 
tossed it into a silver-wicker basket. 

“Keep your rum,” said Dee with an effect of disdain¬ 
ful connoisseurship. “It gets me nothing but perspira¬ 
tion and a bum eye next day! Not even the right kind 
of kick. ... So your Princeton laddie fed Pat some of 
the party fluid. Did it make her sick?” 

“No; it didn’t make her sick,” answered a resentful 
voice, all on one level tone. Pat entered by the rear door. 

“Been listening in?” inquired Constance amiably. 

“I have not. Wouldn’t waste my time,” declared the 
infant of the family. She cast an eye upon the journal 
which her sister had laid aside. “What’s in T.T. this 
week? Anything rich?” 

“Rapidly growing to womanhood,” observed Constance 
to Dee in a tone of mock admiration. 

“Talk-party, I suppose,” said the intruder. “Don’t 
let me interrupt.” 

She strolled purposelessly over to the desk, glanced in 
the letter box and picked up the letter. 

“What are you writing to Warren Graves about?” she 
demanded. 

“Put that letter back,” said Constance. 

“Pm going to look,” declared Pat uncertainly. Her 
statement was followed by a yell of pain. The letter 
fell, inviolate, to the floor as Dee, who had leapt upon her 
with the swiftness and precision of a young panther, tor¬ 
tured her arms backward. 

“If you try to kick I’ll break you in two,” muttered 
the athlete. 

“Let go! I won’t,” wailed Pat, who knew and dreaded 
the other’s strength. 

Released, she massaged her aching elbows. “Dirty you. 


44 


FLAMING YOUTH 


though!” she said, scowling at Constance. “Sneaking a 
letter off to him that way.” 

“I suppose you’d like to censor it,” taunted the writer. 
“Well, if you want to know what’s in it, I told him just 
how old you are and what kind of a silly little ass. I 
don’t think he’ll come back for any more baby-kisses.” 

At this Pat grinned inwardly. Whatever else it may 
have been, that was no baby-kiss that had passed between 
them. With her equanimity quite restored she remarked: 

“You lie.” 

“Tasty manners!” commented Dee. 

“I don’t know what you’ve got to say about it,” said 
Pat venomously. “I noticed a sedan with all the curtains 
pulled down just after you disappeared from the house 
with Jimmy James.” This was a random shot. It went 
wide of the target. 

“Cut it, Scrubby! Cut it!” admonished her sister 
calmly. “I don’t put on any snuggling sketches where 
everybody can see me.” 

“Don’t call me Scrubby!” choked the girl. 

“Look at yourself,” suggested Constance, “and see what 
else you can expect to be called. Did you brush your 
teeth this morning?” 

“Oh, mind your business.” 

“Then go and brush them now,” said Mona’s voice 
from the stairway in its clear and singing cadence. 
Whatever Mona said took on the sound and form of 
music. Pat’s hoarse and unformed speech had an echo 
of the same seductive sweetness. The mother entered, 
adjusting her hat. “I’m lunching in town, kiddies. 
What’s the row?” 

Pat cast a sullenly appealing glance at Constance. In 
vain. 


FLAMING YOUTH 


45 


“The Scrub’s been doing a hug with Warren Graves,” 
announced the elder sister. 

“I have not” 

Mona regarded the flaming face with amused pity. 
She did not take the news seriously. “Did you like him, 
Bambina ?” she asked with careless sympathy. 

A quick, half-suppressed sob answered and surprised 
her. 

“He fed her up on the punch,” began Constance. “And 
then-” 

“A very enterprising young man,” broke in Mrs. Fen- 
triss. “I don’t think we’ll urge him to repeat his visit, 
Connie.” 

“Exactly what I’m writing to tell him.” 

“Because I pinched him from you,” declared Pat in a 
vicious undertone. 

Constance laughed, but not without annoyance. “It’s 
likely, isn’t it!” 

“I made him give me the punch,” continued the accused 
one. “I hated it. I only took one swallow. It wasn’t 
his fault. He told me to go easy on it.” 

The defence of her possession by the girl moved Mona; 
it was so naively, primitively feminine. At the same time 
the look in the childish eyes, dreamy, remembering, uncon¬ 
sciously sensuous, stirred misgivings in the mother’s mind. 
Conscious womanhood was perhaps going to burst upon 
the child explosively; was already in process of realisa¬ 
tion, very likely. Mona recalled certain developments of 
her own roused and startled emotions twenty years be¬ 
fore. Could it be as long ago as that? How vivid to her 
memory it still was! 

“Never mind,” she said in her equable tones. “I dare 
say the punch was too strong. And the Graves boy had 
more than one swallow. He didn’t hate it.” 



46 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“I wrote to him,” said Pat suddenly. 

“You did?” The three incredulous voices blended. 

“Yes, I did. He wrote to me. He asked me to answer. 
He was terribly sorry.” 

“Sorry for what?” asked Dee. 

“For—for acting that way. He seemed to think he’d 
hurt my feelings or something. I told him it was just 
as much my fault as his.” 

“Did you, little Pat?” Her mother leaned forward to 
look into the queer, defiant, chivalrous little face. 
“Perhaps you’re older than I thought. But I shouldn’t 
write any more, if I were you.” 

“I won’t.” 

Mona went out, followed by her youngest. In the hall¬ 
way, Pat gave her mother a light, familiar, shy pat on 
the shoulder. “Thanks for standing by me,” she said 
awkwardly. 

“Did I stand by you?” returned Mona. “I wonder if 
I stand by you enough.” 

Inside the room, Dee mused with a thoughtful, frowning 
face. 

“Think of the Scrub!” she muttered. 

“What of her?” asked Constance. 

“Feeling that way. Already.” There was a hint of 
unconscious envy in her manner. “About a man!” She 
sighed and shook her head incredulously. “It gets me,” 
she confessed. 

“Don’t you like to have a man you like kiss you?” 
inquired Constance curiously. 

Dee meditated. “I don’t mind it,” she answered. “But 
I’d rather run down a long putt, any day.” 

To Dr. Robert Osterhout, whom she sought out after 
her return from luncheon (with Stevens Selfridge) Mona 
detailed the conversation with and about Pat. 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Yes; I know,” said he. 

“How could you know?” 

“Pat told me about young Graves.” 

“What! The whole thing ?” 

“So far as I could judge, she didn’t leave out much.” 

“Why did she tell you? Confession? Remorse?” 

“Not in the least. She enjoyed the telling. She’s very 
feminine, that child. And very curious about herself.” 

“I hope to God she isn’t developing my temperament,” 
reflected the downright Mona after a pause. “It would be 
a dismal joke if the ugly duckling of the flock had that 
wished on her. Poor, pimply little gnome.” 

“Ugly? I wouldn’t be too sure. -The fairy prince 
from Princeton seems to have been quite captivated with 
her.” 

“And she with him.” 

“That, of course. It was a very awakening kiss for 
her.” 

“Does she realise-” 

“She said, ‘Bobs, it made me go weak all over. Is 
chloroform like that?’ ” 

“Diverting notion! What did you tell her?” 

“I told her that it wasn’t, precisely. Then she said, 
‘What does it mean?’ And I said that it might mean 
danger.” 

“She wouldn’t understand that. I’ve never talked to 
her.” Mona, like many women of broad and easy attitude 
toward sex relations in so far as went her own life, had 
a reticence in discussing them with other women. 

“Yes; a she would. Pat’s over twelve, you know.” 

“Yes; I know. But does she?” 

“Perfectly.” 

“Why? She didn’t say anything-” 

“No; she didn’t go into the physico-psycho-analysis 




46 


FLAMING YOUTH 


of her emotions, if that’s what you mean, Mona. I 
shouldn’t have let her. There’s a touch of the morbid in 
her, anyway. That’s the Irish strain from her father. 
But there’s a lot of your saving grace, too—your most 
saving grace.” 

“And what may that be?” 

“The habit of facing facts squarely; even facts about 
oneself.” 

“Is that a gift or a detriment, Bob?” 

“It’s a saving grace, I tell you. Little Pat is going 
to look right clean through the petty illusions of life, 
clear-eyed.” 

“But illusions are the bloom and happiness of life,” 
said Mona wistfully. 

“To play with; not to trust in. Oh, she’ll have her 
illusions about others; she’s begun already. She’s a 
romantic, as you are not. But her dreams about herself 
will all be subject to her own detached scrutiny. If ever 
she comes to dream about a man-” 

“Well? You’re being very subtle and analytical. 
Doctor.” 

“—she’ll make heaven or hell for him.” 

“Bob! Men aren’t going to waste time over her with 
pretty Dee and lovely Connie around.” 

“Aren’t they! Ask young Graves. She’ll make ’em 
dream. Wait and see.” 

“Just what I can’t do,” said Mona quietly. “Ah, I 
didn’t mean to say that, Bob,” she added quickly, catch¬ 
ing the contraction of pain that altered his face. “Well,” 
she mused, brushing her hair back from her broad brow, 
“I can’t quite see it in Pat myself. But perhaps you’re 
right. Xou ought to know. You’re a man.” 



CHAPTER V 

> -i 


Dawn was tinting the high clouds when Mary Delia 
awoke. She had the gift of coming forth from sleep in 
full and instant possession of her faculties. Now she 
felt that something was amiss; something insistent and 
troublesome going on below her window. She jumped 
from bed, crossed the room, and looked out upon the 
shrubbery-encircled driveway. Voices came up to her, 
restrained and cautious, a man’s and a woman’s. She 
recognised the latter. 

“Hush, you two!” she called, low but imperiously. 

The man stepped into view. To her surprise it was 
not Emslie Self ridge but Fred Browning. He was in 
evening dress, a little wilted, and his eyes looked hot and 
anxious; but he retained evident command of himself. 

“That you, Dee?” he whispered loudly, peering up. 

“Yes. What’s the matter? Anything wrong?” 

“No. Connie can’t get in.” 

Dee smothered an exclamation. With dismay she re¬ 
called her sister’s request that she leave the door unlocked. 
But she had not dreamed that the party at the Grants’ 
would last as late as this. 

“I’ll be right down,” she promised. 

Turning the dim corner from the stairway she stum¬ 
bled upon a smoking-stand and overturned it with a din 
which made her heart stand still. Expectant and fearful 
she halted, poised and listening. No sound or stir came 
from above. Cautiously she felt her way forward and 
unlocked the door. Constance was standing at the corner 

of the porch. Her hair was dishevelled and luminous, 

49 


50 


FLAMING YOUTH 


her eyes softly heavy. There was a stain across the bodice 
of her evening dress. As the door opened she was releas¬ 
ing her lips from the man’s kiss. 

“Take care of her, Dee,” said Browning, and was gone. 

“And what do you think of that?” challenged Con¬ 
stance as she paused by the threshold. 

Dee’s answer might have seemed inconsecutive. “You 
are a beautiful thing, Con.” 

“Am I? Perhaps it’s just as well that I am.” There 
was a grimness in the sweet voice. 

“Why that?” 

“I’d be out of luck if I weren’t.” 

“The Grants’ party must have been a hurrah.” 

“Not so much. It got too slow for me before two 
o’clock.” 

“Did it? Where have you been all night?” 

“Motoring.” 

“You don’t look very dusty,” observed the shrewd Dee. 

“Perhaps you think I’m not telling you the truth.” 

“It’s no affair of mine,” returned Dee easily. 

“Well, I’m not,” continued the elder sister. “Come into 
the conservatory.” She led the way across the living 
room, dragging her feet a little as she walked. “Now, 
if you want to know,” she continued defiantly, “I’ll tell 
you. I’ve been in Fred Browning’s rooms.” 

“That’s nice!” observed Dee. “What’s the idea?” 

“I had to go somewhere. I couldn’t come home.” 

“Drunk?” Dee shot out the monosyllable with a sharp¬ 
ness which made the other wince. But she answered 
promptly: 

“I was that. And I wasn’t the only one. That Bacardi 
rum is hell.” 

“Who was with you?” 

“Nobody.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


51 


“You and Fred? Alone?” 

“Yes.” 

“Con!” 

“I know. But I was so sick.” 

“At the party?” 

“No. I wasn’t any worse than the rest. Everyone 
was going strong. Emslie had a wonder!” 

“What will he think?” 

“He’s done his thinking,” returned the beauty obsti¬ 
nately. “He pulled a rotten grouch because I danced too 
much with Freddie at the club, and after we got to the 
Grants’ he wouldn’t pay any attention to anything but 
the punch. Not that I cared. I was enjoying life with 
Freddie. So we decided to pull out at two o’clock.” 

“Yes; but if you were all right then-” 

“I was until we got into his car. Then the punch hit 
me. It was the change into the air, I suppose. I went 
all to pieces, just as we were passing his apartment. So 
he took me in there. It wasn’t his fault. I was terribly 
sick and then awfully sleepy, and when I woke up-” 

“Woke up?” 

“Yes. Fred was bathing my face and telhng me that 
I had to pull myself together and go home. . . . What 
are you looking at me that way for, Dee?” she concluded 
plaintively. 

“Con, did anything happen?” 

“Anything happen?” repeated the other in a dreamy 
voice. “I—I—don’t know.” 

“You don’t know! You must know.” 

“Yes; I would, wouldn’t I? Though I was completely 
sunk. Anything might have happened,” said she, slowly 
nodding her lovely hair-beclouded head. 

“Con! Think!” urged Dee with impatient anxiety. 




52 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“I wouldn’t care,” declared the beauty recklessly. “I’m 
crazy about Freddie. . . . But it didn’t; no, I’m sure 
of that now. Freddie’s an awfully decent sort, Dee.” 

“He hasn’t too pious a reputation. And when did you 
take on this sudden hunch for him? I thought it was 
Emslie.” 

“So did I. Until—Dee, did you ever have a man that 
you’ve always known suddenly look different to you?” 

“No. Not enough different, anyway, to make any dif¬ 
ference.” 

“It’s hard to explain. Something in the way he affects 
you changes and all the world changes with it. That’s 
how it was with Fred, and, I suppose the same way about 
me with him. Though he claims he’s been mad about 
me for months.” 

“That’s a blessing, considering,” remarked Dee grimly. 
“Suppose you were seen going into his place?” 

“We weren’t.” 

“So far as you know.” 

“If we should have been, it’s a sweet little scandal for 
the cats, isn’t it!” 

“In that case it’s up to Freddie. It’s up to Freddie 
anyway.” 

“Freddie’s all right,” declared Connie with conviction. 
“If he hadn’t been—Dee, when I came to, I told him I 
didn’t want to go home.” 

“You wanted to stay?” said the sister slowly. 

Constance nodded. “I wasn’t quite sobered up. But 
anyway I did want to stay. You can’t understand that, 
can you?” 

“No; I can’t.” 

“Because you’re a cold-blooded little fish. I’m still 
feeling that dam’ Bacardi or I wouldn’t be talking to you 
this way.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


53 


“Was Fred feeling it, too?” 

“If he was, he had a grip bn himself all right. He’s 
a lot squarer man than people give him credit for, Dee.” 

“Lucky for you he is.” 

“Oh, I don’t know. What’s the difference!” retorted 
Connie perversely. “I guess those sort of things happen 
a lot more often than any of us know about.” 

“What sort of things?” interpolated a voice new to 
the parley. 

The two sisters whirled about. Just outside the door 
stood Patricia in her tousled nightgown, hot-eyed with 
curiosity. “What sort of things?” she repeated. 

“How long have you been there?” demanded Mary 
Delia. 

“Long enough to hear a lot,” answered the unperturbed 
Patricia. “Since before you asked Con did anything hap¬ 
pen, and she said first she didn’t know and afterward 
that it didn’t. What did you mean? What didn’t hap¬ 
pen?” 

With a sudden pounce the lithe Dee was upon her and 
held her, half-choked against the wall. “If you breathe 
a word of this, Scrubs, I’ll half kill you.” 

“Leh—heh-heh—me alone!” whimpered Pat. “I’m not 
going to tell anybody.” 

“See that you don’t, then.” 

“You told on me about Warren Graves. 5 * 

“That was different.” 

“How, different?” 

“You’re only a child. You’ve no business playing silly 
tricks like that.” 

“Wasn’t it a silly trick of Con to-” 

“Go back to bed,” ordered Dee with a powerful shake 
which seemed to the unfortunate victim to loosen her 
eyes in their sockets. 



FLAMING YOUTH 


54? 

She crept away but paused at the door to say wist¬ 
fully and sullenly: 

“Just the same, I think you might tell me what didn’t 
happen.” 

Late the next afternoon Fred Browning came to the 
house, having called up Constance at noon. Dee came 
down to him. 

“Is everything all right, Dee?” he asked anxiously. 

The girl nodded. 

“Yes. The family didn’t wake up. I’ll send Con down 
right away.” 

But before Constance arrived, little Pat entered the 
side room where he was nervously waiting. She looked 
at him solemnly, entreatingly, hesitatingly, then burst 
out: 

“Mr. Browning, will you tell me something?” 

Her earnestness amused him. “Why, of course,” he 
said, quite unsuspecting. “I always like to help the young 
to knowledge. But don’t make it too hard.” 

“What was it that might have happened to Con last 
night, that the girls wouldn’t tell me about?” 

He stared at her, completely aghast. “You young 
devil I” he breathed. 

Constance’s quick footsteps sounded on the stairs, and 
the inquirer was fain to flee, unsated of her curiosity. But 
she peered back, and her breath came quicker as she saw 
her pretty sister walk straight, eager, and unashamed into 
the man’s waiting arms. Pat deemed it the part of pru¬ 
dence to keep herself aloof the rest of the day. 

Later Fred Browning had a cocktail with Mr. Feniriss 
and a brief talk on the subject of Constance. 

And so they were married. 


CHAPTER YI 


M0TH*LIKE, Patricia hovered around the mystic radi¬ 
ance of Constance’s wedding festivities. They had let 
her come home from school for the occasion. Reckoned too 
young for a bridesmaid and too old for a flower-girl she 
occupied an anomalous and unofficial position in the party. 
Dee, who, as maid of honour, had opportunity to exercise 
her executive faculties in managing the details, found her 
irritatingly in the way. 

“Under your feet all the time,” said she to the bride. 
“The kid is crazy with curiosity. I never heard so many 
questions.” 

“Yes,” assented Constance fretfully. “She keeps ask¬ 
ing me how I feel and staring at me as if I were going to 
die or have an operation or something.” 

Dee laughed. “She got hold of Fred yesterday and 
put him through a catechism while he was w T aiting for 
you to come down. He actually looked rattled.” 

“She’s a pest, that child! School doesn’t seem to have 
toned her down a bit.” 

“At least it’s taken the slump out of her shoulders. 
She’s got a kind of boyish swagger that isn’t bad. For 
her kind of style, I mean.” 

“Oh, style!” repeated the elder sister contemptuously. 
“She’ll never have any more style than a kitten. I wish 
you’d keep her out of my way.” 

To accomplish this, however, would have entailed an 
almost continuous vigilance. The elaborate ceremonial 
of marriage and giving in marriage with its trappings and 

appurtenances, its vestigial suggestions of sexual-sacri- 

55 


56 


FLAMING YOUTH 


ricial import, its underlying and provocative symbolism 
had stirred in the youngest member of the family an imag¬ 
ination as inflammable as it was unself-comprehending. 
Constance’s matter-of-fact mind could not interpret the 
eager and searching scrutiny of her sister, though it made 
her restless and uneasy and vaguely shamed her. The 
afternoon before the wedding, Pat tiptoed in upon hei; 
as she was resting on Mona’s sleeping-porch. 

“Connie,” she half whispered. 

“Well?” returned the bride crossly. 

“Where are you going?” 

“Going? I’m try in o rest.” 

“Where are you goiug after you’re married? To a 
hotel ?” 

“What do you want to know for?” demanded the elder 
sister, raising herself on her elbow to look at the younger. 

“Nothing. I just wanted to know.” 

“Well, you won’t. Not from me.” 

“Oh, verra-well! You needn’t get all fussed up 
about it.” 

“Oh, don't be hateful, Pat. I want to rest. 5 

“I’ll go in just a minute. But- Con?” 

The bride sighed, a martyrized sigh. 

“What is it?” 

“When you get back—when I get back from school, 
will you tell me ?” 

“What is the child getting at! Tell you what ?” 

“Everything.” 

“I don’t know what you mean,” fended Constance. 

“Yes, you do. You know.” 

The older girl flushed a slow pink, then laughed. “You’re 
a funny little monkey! Why should you want to know?” 

“Well, I’ve got to go through it sometime, myself, 
haven’t I?” reasoned the girl. 



FLAMING YOUTH 


57 


a Oh, have you! Well, you can find out then.” 

“I think you’re mean. You’d tell Dee if she asked 
you.” 

“I wouldn’t tell anyone . It’s disgusting to be so—so 
prying. Where do you get such ideas?” 

Pat reflected before answering. “Don’t all girls have 
’em?” 

“If they do, they don’t talk about them.” 

“Oh, that’s all bunk,” declared the cheerful Pat. “If 
you’ve got the idea inside you, you might as well spit it 
out. . . . I’ll bet men tell.” 

The bride looked at the clever, eager, childish face with 
sudden panic. “If I thought they did,” she began, but 
immediately broke off, taking a plaintive, invalidish tone. 
“Do go away, Scrubs! You’re making my head ache. 
And for heaven’s sake, don’t stare at me to-morrow like 
you have to-day. It gives me the creeps.” 

“It gives me the thrills,” returned the alarmingly out¬ 
spoken ingenue, as she danced out. 

Throughout the ceremony of the following day, Pat’s 
interest was divided between the bride and an equally 
absorbing prepossession. She had, so she told herself, 
fallen desperately in love with one of the ushers, a Boston 
man named Vincent. To her infatuated eyes he was 
adorably handsome, and so romantic looking, though 
quite old. Probably thirty! On the previous evening 
he had chatted casually with her for five minutes, finding 
the odd, eager child with the sombre eyes and the effort¬ 
ful affectation of grown-up-ness mildly amusing. Going 
up the aisle he had made her heart leap by giving her a 
little friendly nod. During the ceremony she brooded on 
him, building up the airiest of vague and roseate senti¬ 
mentalities for the far future, and for the near, nursing 
the belief that he would surely seek her out as soon as 


58 


FLAMING YOUTH 


possible at the reception. When she saw him, later, quite 
forgetful of her in his interest in Virginia Platt, a slight, 
flashing brunette of the wedding party, she was both 
chilled and infuriated. He did not even ask her to dance, 
though once he crossed the door toward her, only to turn 
aside at the last, hopeful moment. It was terrible to be 
young and queer looking, though she had done her careful 
best for her elfish little face and immature figure. 

Others came for dances, however; Selden Thorpe, the 
rector’s son, the most often. Him she deemed “interesting 
looking,” with his pale face, bristly hair, and hard, grey 
eyes, typical of the unconscious egotist. Though he 
danced well, here Pat could overmatch him, for she had 
the passion of rhythmic movement in her blood. 

“You’ve got the fairy foot all right, little one,” said 
he, investing the epithet with his conscious sophomoric 
superiority. 

Pat felt offended. She wanted so much to be grown-up 
that evening. But she feared to alienate her escort’s bud¬ 
ding interest if she showed any resentment. 

“Anyone can dance with as good a dancer as you are,” 
she replied sweetly. 

He gave her an appreciative glance. “Can they? I 
guess we could enter for a prize all right.” 

“We could make some of ’em hustle to beat us,” she 
declared gaily. „ 

“Could you make a getaway some evening, and we’d 
slip over and try it out at one of the big places ?” 

“Would you take me?” she cried, delighted. But her 
face fell. “There won’t be time. I’m going back to 
school.” 

The talk languished after this disappointment. The 
number was over and they were seated in a remote corner 


FLAMING YOUTH 59 

of tlie little conservatory. Thorpe wondered wHat; He 
could find to talk to this kid about. 

“Engine completely stalled,” he thought ruefully. 

On her part, Patricia experienced a sense of dismal 
vacancy. What was there in her mental repertoire to 
interest this worldly collegian? The memory of the party 
at which she had seen him gambling came to mind as a 
hopeful bridge over the widening conversational chasm. 

“Been winning much lately?” she asked brightly. 

“Winning?” He looked puzzled. “At what?” 

“Craps. I heard you stung the crowd for a hundred 
dollars at our party.” 

He was flattered and lofty. “Oh, I did pretty well. 
Where’d you hear about it? You weren’t at the party.” 

“Not for long,” confessed Pat. “But I was among 
those present for a little while.” 

Connection of ideas recalled to her Warren Graves and 
his light-hearted allure. She wished he were beside her 
on the settee instead of Selden. She could almost hear 
his voice, bantering and tender, “Sweetie,” and feel the 
warm pressure of his arm. With him there would have 
been no anxious necessity of searching for topics of con¬ 
versation, whereas with Selden- Why not experiment a 

little, she thought, daringly. She let her hand slip care¬ 
lessly from her lap to her side. It came into touch with 
his. The contact gave her a shock as unexpected as it 
was painful. She had failed to notice that he held a 
lighted cigarette. 

“Ouch!” said Pat, and licked the wounded knuckle 
with a sharp, pink tongue like a young animal’s. 

“Let’s see,” said the youth. 

He took her hand, glanced at it, and set his lips to the 
reddened skin cavalierly enough. “That better?” he 
asked. 



60 


FLAMING YOUTH 


Pat nodded. She stared intently at the solaced spot 
wondering what the progress of the game would be. In 
Thorpe’s inured mind there was no room for surmise. To 
him this was all formula, the parliamentary procedure of 
casual love-making. He drew the yielding fingers into his 
left hand and slipped his right arm across the slim, girlish 
shoulders. She leaned back a little from his embrace. 

“Well?” he questioned, an easy laugh on his lips. 

“Well, what?” she whispered. 

He bent and kissed her. It was a quick kiss, adven¬ 
turous and playful. Not so had Warren Graves’s eager 
and searching lips closed down upon hers. Pat was both 
disappointed of her expected thrill, and unaccountably 
relieved and reassured. A queer, inward fluttering which 
had unbalanced her thoughts for the moment when the 
appropriative arm encircled her, was stilled. Suddenly 
she felt quite mistress of herself and the situation. She 
proceeded now according to a formula which she was 
improvising, and which millions of girls had improvised 
before her. 

“What did you do that for?” she murmured. 

“Didn’t you want me to?” 

Pat abandoned her formula before it was fairly under 
way. “I suppose I did,” she admitted. 

Expectant of the usual “No,” he was startled, amused, 
and a little roused. “Did you?” he said. 

He drew her closer, bent his mouth to hers again, felt 
a swift stir at the sweet, soft pressure, followed by a sen¬ 
sible chilling as she turned away to say thoughtfully : 

“I wonder why I did.” 

“You’re a queer kid,” he observed genuinely. “Bu£ 
there’s something mighty sweet about you.” 

“Is there?” she cried, charmed with the direct flattery. 


FLAMING YOUTH 


61 


“I suppose you wanted me to because you like me,” 
he pursued. “Wasn’t that it?” 

“I don’t know. I like being petted.” 

“Oh! Do you? By any-old-body?” 

“I don’t know,” she repeated. “I’ve never been but; 
once before.” 

“Did you like that better than this?” 

“It was different.” 

“Different?” His interest and curiosity were piqued; 
his vanity, too. “Well, I can make it different, too.” 

“No,” choked Pat in sudden panic as she felt his lean, 
sinewy arms encircle her crushingly. “Don’t, Sel!” 

She twitched her face away from his. Immediately lies 
alarm gave place to a stimulus of sheer delight. She had 
distinctly felt him tremble. An epochal discovery! For 
she was, herself, quite cool. She possessed then the mys¬ 
terious power to arouse men out of themselves, while 
remaining self-possessed, to affect them in this strange 
manner more than she herself was moved. 

“Pat, dear!” whispered the youth, avid and insistent. 

He had ceased to seem formidably old to her now; she 
was his superior. She kissed him again, but lightly and 
pushed him back. 

“Bad bunny!” she mocked. “We ought not to, Sel.” 

“Oh, what’s the harm?” 

“Someone might come in.” 

“Come outside, then.” 

“Oh, let’s go back and dance. I’m afraid of you.” 
She gave him a sidelong glance with this gratuitous lie. 
“Come, I love this trot.” 

They danced it out, he holding her closer than before, 
she letting her cheek press his from time to time. She 
yearned to the feeling of his young strength, yet was 
quite content for the time, with the experience of the 


62 FLAMING YOUTH 

evening as far as it had gone. When they returned to 
the conservatory again, she made him sit in a chair oppo¬ 
site to her. His sophomoric assurance was quite tem¬ 
pered down; the unformed child whom he had danced with 
condescendingly and as a kindness earlier in the evening, 
was become imperatively desirable now. He chafed at 
her aloof attitude. 

“I’m coming to see you,” he said with an attempt at 
masterfulness in his tone. “I’ll come to-morrow. Keep 
the evening open.” 

She shook her head. “I’m going back to school.” 

“Are you?” He looked dispirited. “Will you write to 
me, Pat?” 

“Can’t.” 

“Well—you’ll be home for vacation, won’t you?” 

“Of course.” 

“So’ll I. I was going to a house party on Staten 
Island. But if you’ll be here I’m coming back.” 

“Will you?” Her tone was almost indifferent, though 
she was aflame with triumph, inwardly. “That’s nice 
of you.” 

“I will if you’ll be glad to see me.” 

“Of course I will.” 

“Awfully glad?” he pressed. 

“Oh, I don’t know about all that,” replied Pat, the 
coquette. 

“You’re going to kiss me good-bye?” he pleaded. 

“Perhaps. Just a little one.” 

W 7 hen she had slipped from his embrace, her gaze was 
far away. 

“What are you thinking of now?” he asked jealously. 

“Of Connie.” 

“What of her?” 

“I wonder where they are now. I was thinking,” sKe 


FLAMING YOUTH 63 

Continued as if speaking to herself, “that I’d like to see 
her to-morrow morning.” 

“Why to-morrow morning?” asked Thorpe. He was 
a youth of slow imagination, but he was not stupid. Sud¬ 
denly he laughed. “Oh!” he cried. “So that's the idea! 
You little devil!” 

“No; it isn’t,” denied Pat, her cheeks flaming, and ran 
back to the ballroom. 

At the entrance she collided with Scott Vincent, who 
was looking for a vanished partner. 

“Pardon!” he said, cleverly saving her from a recoil 
against the door! “Oh; it’s the infanta!” He looked 
into her vivid face with appreciative amusement. “Don’t 
you want to give me this dance?” he asked. 

Her hot cheeks cooled. She considered him apprais¬ 
ingly though her heart beat quicker. He was so very 
good to look at! 

“No; I don’t,” she replied. 

“No?” he laughed. “You’re frank, at least. Perhaps 
you’ll be franker and tell me why.” 

“Because you didn’t ask me earlier.” 

“Indeed! But I hadn’t seen you,” he protested, sur¬ 
prised at himself at being put upon the defensive by this 
child. 

“I don’t like not being seen,” retorted Pat, with a calm¬ 
ness worthy of an experienced flirt. 

“Well, I’m damned!” said Vincent softly, under his 
breath. He began to be interested in this quaint specimen. 
“Oh! come! Give me a chance to make amends. How 
about a little supper?” 

“No,” answered Pat with perverse satisfaction. “I’m 
going to bed. Good-night, Mr. Too-late.” 

She darted away from him, triumphantly satisfied of 
having left a barb behind her. He wouldn’t forget her 


64 


FLAMING YOUTH 


soon, she’d bet! At the turn of the stairs she peeped 
down expectantly. Sure enough! there he stood staring 
after her, his comely face clouded with perplexity and 
disappointment. It gave Pat a sudden heating of the 
blood; but this was the thrill of satisfaction, of some¬ 
thing achieved, quite different from the unsated yet 
delicious longing experienced when she had looked down 
before from that same vantage point upon Warren Graves. 

Even more than before she was aware of a power within 
herself, perhaps greater than herself, to allure men. And 
subtly, profoundly, she felt that the touchstone of that 
power was denial. 

Scott Vincent would remember her, Selden Thorpe 
would think of her with longing, because she had denied 
them both. Pat slept happily that night, the sleep of a 
little Venus Victrix. 


i 


CHAPTER VII 

It was to her second daughter that Mona Fentriss 
made, after due thought, disclosure of her condition. Dee 
was shocked and incredulous. She had no profound affec¬ 
tion for her mother. None of the girls had. But Mona 
had always been bonne camarade with them in her casual 
and light-hearted way. And she had made, as few women 
make, the atmosphere of her home. Without her the house 
was almost unthinkable; it would not be the same place; 
not only sadder and duller, but essentially different. In 
this way chiefly would she be missed. 

“You’ll have to be the one to carry on the house¬ 
keeping job, Dee.” 

“I?” said Mary Delia. “Mother, I don’t know the first 
thing about it.” 

“You’ll learn. You’re clever.” 

“Besides, I can’t believe that you’re going to—that 
you’re right about yourself.” 

“Ask Dr. Bob.” 

“He’s been hinting at something. But he seemed afraid 
to come out with it when I tried to follow up. Is that the 
reason why you wanted me to marry Bobs?” 

“Partly.” 

“I can’t seem to think of him in that way. But then, 
I can’t seem to think of any man in that way.” 

“Not even Jimmy James?” 

“Not even Jimmy, much as I like him.” 

“When we talked about this before you said-” 

“Yes; I know. Probably I’ll marry him one of these 
days. But when he tries to make love to me, I curl up a 

little. Am I abnormal, Mona?” 

65 



66 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“I don’t know,” answered Mona reflectively. “We 
women are queer machines, Dee. Perhaps it’s just that 
Jimmy isn’t the right man.” 

“Then I haven’t met the right man yet. It would be 
pretty weird if he came along afterward, wouldn’t it? So 
perhaps I’d better wait.” 

“No; I think perhaps you’d better not, if you really 
like Jimmy. There might not be any right man for you, 
in that sense. Some of us are made that way.” 

“Yes; I suppose so. But why choose me to run the 
house? Con would do it better, wouldn’t she?” 

“Possibly. But if she’s to do it, I’d have to tell her 
what I’ve just told you. And I don’t want to break in 
on her happiness.” 

“Oh, happiness,” murmured Dee in a curious tone. 

“You don’t think she’s happy?” queried the mother. 
“Or perhaps you don’t believe in that kind of happiness. 
Cynicism at your age is a pose.” 

“It isn’t that. But I don’t believe Con and Freddie 
are going too well together.” 

“Why not?” 

“Freddie’s hitting the booze quite a bit. Besides, he 
hasn’t as much money as Con thought. Not nearly. And 
she’s a high-speed little spender, you know.” 

“Yes; she’s certainly that,” agreed Mona, bethinking 
herself of the monthly bills which came in after the eldest 
sister’s allowance had been expended in a variety of man¬ 
ners for which the spender was cheerfully unable to ac¬ 
count. 

“Doing fifty thousand dollar tilings on a fifteen thou¬ 
sand dollar income won’t speed ’em up the Road to Happi¬ 
ness,” opined the shrewd Dee. “She’ll make a hash of it, 
if she doesn’t pull up.” 

“Doesn’t she care for Fred, do you think?” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


67 


“In one way she’s crazy about him.” Dee’s curled lip 
suggested the way; also that she neither comprehended 
nor sympathised with it. But Mona laughed, relieved. 

“Well; that’s rather essential, you know, in marriage. 
I’ll talk to Connie about extravagance when I come back.” 

“As a preacher on that text,” began Dee wickedly; then 
bent over to give her mother’s hand an awkward and 
remorseful pat. “I’ll do the best I can, of course. And 
don’t think I’m not—not feeling pretty rotten over this,” 
she continued, huskily and a little shamefully, like a boy 
caught in a display of emotion. . . . “You say, when you 
come back. Going away?” 

“Oh, just a run over to Philadelphia to spend a couple 
of days with the Barhams,” replied Mona carelessly. 
“You and I will have to do a little figuring about the 
housekeeping, too, on my return. And you can pass it 
on to Pat when you get married.” 

“Pat! She’ll be a grand little housekeeper when her 
turn comes. I pity poor Dad.” 

“She and your father understand each other, though, 
in a way,” mused Mona. 

Having meditated over this conversation with dubious 
feelings, Dee, who had a sane instinct for facts, went to 
call on Dr. Osterhout at the little laboratory attached 
to his bungalow. This was on a Tuesday. Her mother 
had left the previous noon. Osterhout emerged from rapt 
contemplation of a test tube to find the girl standing 
over him. 

“Hullo,” he said. “What are you invading a bachelor’s 

quarters at this hour for?” 

“Afraid of being compromised, Bobs?” she retorted. 

“Hadn’t thought of it. Why put such alarming ideas 
into my head? But my reputation will stand it if yours 


68 


FLAMING YOUTH 


will. Besides, a physician is immune. One of the per¬ 
quisites of the profession.” 

“It’s as a physician that I want to talk to you.” 

His face changed; became grave and solicitous. “What’s 
wrong?” 

“I want to know about Mona.” 

“Has she told you anything?” 

“Yes.” 

“I’ve wanted her to for some time.” 

“Then it’s true.” 

“Yes; it’s true.” 

“How long, Bobs?” 

“Uncertain. It isn’t progressing as fast as I feared. 
But—not very long, Dee.” He spoke with effort. 

“A year?” 

“Perhaps. If she’s careful.” 

“But she isn’t careful. You know Mona.” 

“No. She isn’t. It isn’t in her to be.” 

“Ought she to be running off on trips?” 

“Of course not. But I can’t stop her.” A note of 
weariness, of defeat had come into his brusque voice. 

“Poor old Bobs!” The girl went to him and set a hand 
on his shoulder, brushing his cheek with her fingers as 
she did so. There was nothing repellent to her sensitive¬ 
ness in contact with him, nothing of the revulsion which 
she experienced under the eager touch of men, tentatively 
love-making. Bobs wasn’t like a man to her so much as 
like a faithful and noble-spirited dog. “It’s hard on you, 
isn’t it?” she murmured. 

His eyes thanked her for her understanding and sym¬ 
pathy. 

“It isn’t easy,” he confessed. 

“I won’t hurt you any more. But just one question;’ 
is it quite hopeless?” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


69 


“I can’t see any chance of cure.” 

“Poor old Bobs!” she said again, this time in a whisper. 
“If I were a man I’m sure I should be wild about Mona. 
I can see that even if she is my mother. She’s so lovely; 
and she’s so young; and she’s”—Dee smiled—“she’s such 
a bad child.” 

“No; she’s not,” he defended doggedly. “She’s just a 
little spoiled because life has always petted her. And now 
the petting is almost over.” 

“Yes. That’s hard to believe, isn’t it? Of Mona! She’s 
always had her own way with everyone and everything. 
But she’s got courage. She won’t flinch. Bobs, do you 
remember a talk we three had, months ago?” 

“Yes.” 

“I’d like to do something for her before—something 
that she wanted. And for you, too. It wouldn’t do any 
good, would it,” she asked wistfully, “if I were to marry 
you ?” 

“Not a bit.” 

She smiled, awry, but withal, relieved. “What a bear 
you are! Isn’t that your phone ringing?” 

“Let it ring. This isn’t office hours.” 

“A hint for me? Having proposed and been rejected, 
I’m off.” She brushed his cheek again. “Old boy,” she 
said, “it is going to be tough going for you. Worse than 
for any of us. Good-bye.” 

Concentration upon his work being dissipated by this 
disturbing visit, Osterhout threw himself on the settee and 
dropped out of the world into a chasm of dark musings. 
If Mona had ever really cared for him, he mused—if he 
had been her lover—might he have been her lover, as she 
had hinted?—had she lovers? Or were the other men 
merely playthings of her wayward moods, of her craving 
for excitement, for adulation, for the sunlit warmth of 


70 


FLAMING YOUTH 


being loved? At least he had not been a plaything; her 
regard for and trust in him were true and sincere. Better 

these, perhaps, than the turmoil and uncertainty of- 

Yet, that temptation that she had held out to him; was 
it just an instance of her wickeder bent of coquetry? . . . 
Or could he have made her care? . . . Damn that tele¬ 
phone ! 

He roused himself with a wrench and went into the 
next room where the intrusive mechanism was thrilling. 
Long-distance had been trying to get him . . . Wait a 
moment ... A man’s voice, low, eager and strained 
came to his ear over the wire. 

“Dr. Osterhout?” 

“Yes.” 

“Can you come to Trenton immediately? By the next 
train ?” 

“Who is speaking?” 

“It’s very important,” went on the nervous and insist¬ 
ent voice. “It’s a—a very important case. Critical.” 

“Who are you?” 

“Is that necessary?” queried the voice, after a pause. 

“Certainly. Do you suppose that I am going out on 
any wild-goose, anonymous call?” 

“Then I was to say,” said the voice, “that Mona needs 
you.” 

“Mona! Is she ill?” 

“Yes.” 

“Where?” 

“Here, in Trenton.” 

“Where in Trenton?” 

“At the Marcus Groot Hotel. You’ll be met at the 
train. For God’s sake say you’ll come.” 

“I can get the one o’clock,” said Osterhout. “Good¬ 
bye.” 



FLAMING YOUTH 


71 


Going over on the train he had time for scalding medi¬ 
tations. Mona in Trenton! At the Marcus Groot Hotel. 
When she was supposedly visiting the Barhams at their 
Philadelphia apartment. And all this atmosphere of 
secrecy thrown about it by the unknown man. But was 
he unknown? The voice had seemed dimly familiar to 
Osterhout. Surely, he had heard it before. Feverishly 
he mustered in his mind Mona’s admirers, canvassed them 
over, vacillated between this and that one, and shook with 
a jealous and amazed rage which horrified while it tore 
at him, as Sidney Rathbone hurried up the platform to 
meet him. But in a moment he had mastered himself. 

“Thank God, you’re here!” 

“How is she?” 

“A good deal easier. She’s been terribly ill.” 

“Heart?” 

“Yes. She wouldn’t let me call any local physician.” 

“When was she taken?” inquired Osterhout as he 
/stepped into the waiting taxi. 

“This morning. About eight o’clock.” 

In his anxiety Rathbone was beyond any considerations 
of concealment; the revelation was absolute when, at the 
hotel, he took Osterhout directly to the suite of rooms, as 
one having the right. Mona greeted the newcomer with a 
smile, grateful, pleading, pitiful. Mutely it said: “Don’t 
be too harsh in your judgment of me.” 

Hardening himself to his professional state of mind, 
Osterhout made his swift, assured, detailed examination. 

“What’s the verdict?” whispered Mona. 

He nodded encouragingly. “You’ll be all right,” he 
said reassuringly. From his case he produced some pel¬ 
lets. 

“Not an opiate?” she asked rebelliously. “I want to 
ialk to you.” 


72 FLAMING YOUTH 

“No. It’s a stimulant. But I think you’d better not 
try to talk for a while.” 

“I must . . . Sid, dear, go into the other room, won’t 
you ?” 

Itathbone nodded, speechless for the moment. His hol¬ 
lowed eyes were full of the slow tears of relief. He bent 
over the sick woman’s face for a moment and was gone, 

obediently. 

* 

“I want to tell you,” said Mona, as soon as the door 
had closed, “about this.” 

“There isn’t any need,” returned Osterhout. 

“No. There isn’t,” agreed Mona. “The situation ex¬ 
plains itself, doesn’t it?” She smiled at him, equably but 
without hardihood. 

“It does.” 

“Are you being my wise doctor or my reproachful 
friend ? Are you thinking to yourself: 4 Mona, I wouldn’t 
have thought it of you!’ Because, if you are-” 

“I’m not.” 

“You mean that you would have thought it of me. 
How dare you, Bobs!” she demanded elfishly. 

He did not respond to her raillery, which he recognised 
for the expression of tortured nerves. “I wish you 
wouldn’t talk,” he said. 

“I will,” she retorted mutinously. “It won’t hurt me. 
At worst, it won’t hurt me nearly as much as to hold in 
what I want to say. Bobs, was this attack brought on by 
—by my foolishness?” 

44 Very possibly. It certainly didn’t help any,” he re¬ 
plied grimly. 

“Suppose I’d died here,” she mused. “I very nearly 
did.” 

“So I should judge.” 

, “What a scandal there’d have been! And what a text 



FLAMING YOUTH 73 

for the pious ! ‘The wages of sin is death.’ D’you believe 
that, Bobs?” 

“It’s a useful bogey to scare people who are more timid 
than they are wicked.” 

“I’m not timid,” she proclaimed. “And I don’t feel 
particularly wicked. Only anxious over how this is going 
to turn out.” 

“What did you do it for, Mona?” he burst out pain¬ 
fully. 

She gave him a sidelong glance. “Oh, I don’t know. 
Boredom. And he begged me so. Poor Sid! He does 
love me.” 

“The dirty scoundrel! If he loved you, would he-” 

“Of course he would!” she broke in, with impatient 
contempt. “Don’t indulge in cheap melodrama. It’s 
because people are in love that they take risks like this.” 

“Then you love him,” said Osterhout dolorously. 

“I don’t know. He sways me. But—I don’t think I’m 
in love with him, as you mean it.” 

“Yet you-” 

“Yet I came here with him. Does that seem so terrible 
to you?” She spoke in a tone of half-tender mockery. 

“I can’t understand it, except on the ground that you 
love him.” 

“Because you don’t understand me. And there are 
twenty-one different definitions of love.” 

“Do you understand yourself?” 

“Yes; I do,” she asserted thoughtfully and boldly. 
“And I’m not afraid to accept myself as I am. I don’t 
shut my eyes to the picture just because it’s my own. 
I’m not a sneak.” 

“No. You’re not that.” 

“And if I take the chances I’m ready to face the conse- 




74 


FLAMING YOUTH 


quences,” she said without defiance, but as one who enun¬ 
ciates a principle of life. 

“The consequences? Of this?” 

“If necessary. It isn’t the first time.” He winced and 
shrank. “Ah, I’m sorry if that hurt you!” she cried con¬ 
tritely. 

“Never mind. There are others than me to be thought 
of.” 

“You do the thinking, Bobs. I’m not up to it.” 

“I will.” 

“That’s like you,” she murmured gratefully. 

“Where are you supposed to be staying?” 

“At the Barhams’, on Walnut Street. Only Sue is at 
home.” 

“Can you arrange it with her?” 

“To back up my lies? Yes; Sue will stand by.” It 
was characteristic of Mona Fentriss that she should use 
the short, ugly, and veracious word. 

“Then I shall take you to a Philadelphia hospital.” 

“Am I as bad as that?” 

“It’s the simplest way to cover the trail. You were 
taken ill at the Barhams’; you wired for me to avoid 
alarming the family, and I had you transferred to the 
hospital. But there’s a risk.” 

“Of being trapped?” 

“Not that so much. Of bringing on another attack.” 

“You’ll be with me, won’t you?” 

“Yes. We’ll get a car and take you over.” 

“Then I’m not afraid,” she said trustfully. “But— 
Sve’; do you mean that Sid is going along?” 

“I supposed you’d want him.” 

“I don’t.” 

Wise though he was in human nature, Mona was always 
surprising Osterhout. He made no comment, but went 


FLAMING YOUTH 75 

into the front room. Rathbone, his finely cut face mottled 
and livid, lurched heavily out of his chair. 

“Is she going to die?” he asked, looking pitifully unlike 
the traditional villain of such a drama. 

“Perhaps,” returned the physician shortly. 

“Because of—was it this that brought on the attack?” 

Osterhout eyed him with grim distaste. “It didn’t 
help any,” he answered, as he had answered Mona. 

“Good God! If she dies through my fault-” 

“You should have thought of that before.” 

“I love her so!” groaned the man. His face changed. 
“I’ll know what to do,” he muttered in quiet, self-centred 
determination. 

“And what’s that?” demanded the physician. 

“Nothing,” replied the other, startled and sullen. 

Osterhout reached him in three steps. “Suicide, per¬ 
haps,” he said. 

“That’s my business.” 

“It is. If you’re a low, dirty coward.” 

Rathbone straightened. “I won’t take that from any 
man.” 

“Lower your voice, you fool! And listen to me. If 
she dies and you kill yourself, do you realize what that 
would mean? It would be advertising this situation to 
the world. Scandal and shame for the family. Oh, it’s 
an easy way out for you. But can’t you be man enough 
to think of others a little?” 

“Isn’t it scandal and shame anyway?” 

“No. It isn’t,” returned the doctor energetically. 
“I’m going to get her out of it. All you have to do is 
to obey orders.” 

“I’ll do that,” said Rathbone eagerly and brokenly. 
“I’ll do anything you say. And if ever I can repay 




76 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“If you try to thank me I’ll kill you !” retorted Oster- 
hout, snarling and livid, suddenly losing control of him¬ 
self in his jealous anguish of soul. 

The other stared in his face, amazed but unalarmed 
by the outbreak. “Ah!” he breathed. “So that’s the way 
it is with you. Well—God help you! I’m sorry. But I 
know now you’ll do your best for her. That’s all I care 
about.” 

He turned toward the door of the room. For the 
moment Osterhout started forward to intercept him, then 
drew back with a face in which shone the bitterness of 
yielding to a superior right. 

When Rathbone returned, both men had recovered their 
self-command. 

“Get your things together; send for a maid to pack 
hers; settle your bill, and get the easiest riding car you 
can find to go to Philadelphia,” were the physician’s brief 
directions. 

“Where are you going to take her?” 

“To a hospital.” 

“When can I see her?” 

“That is for her to say.” 

“Then you don’t think she’s going to—that there is 
any immediate danger?” said the lover hopefully. 

“I think she’ll pull through this time, though there is 
still danger.” 

“I’m glad you’re with her,” said Rathbone simply, and 
went. 

Quite as much time was devoted by Dr. Osterhout in 
the days immediately following to covering the devious 
trail of his patient as to treating her medically. After 
a consultation with Mrs. Barham, in which each solemnly 
pretended that the other entertained no suspicion of 
Mona’s slip, he wrote a heedfully worded letter of misin¬ 
formation and assurance to Ralph Fentriss, explaining 


FLAMING YOUTH 


n 

that his wife had been taken to the hospital after a mild 
attack, more for rest than anything else; that no member 
of the family was to come over, and that she would be in 
condition to return home in a few days. This latter wa§ 
true, for Mona’s recuperative powers were great. None 
of the family came. But to Osterhout’s surprise, he ran 
upon Patricia while walking down Broad Street on 
Sunday. She was with a pretty and smartly dressed girl 
a little older than herself. 

“What are you doing here, Pat?” he demanded. 

“Week-ending with Cissie Parmenter.” With an aplomb 
amusing in one so young she indicated her companion. 
“She’s my b.f. at school. Cissie, this is Dr. Bobs. You 
know about him.” 

“Yes, indeed. How d’you do, Dr. Osterhout.” 

“And what manner of creature is a b.f.?” asked he 
quizzically, taking the extended hand which was orna¬ 
mented with a valuable ruby. 

“Best friend, of course, stupid Bobs,” returned Pat. 
“What kind of a bat are you on down here?” 

“Your mother’s been ill. She’s in hospital here,” he 
answered and immediately wondered whether he had not 
spoken unwisely. 

“Hospital?” Pat opened wide eyes. “Is it dangerous?” 

“No. She’s coming along very well.” 

“Take me to see her.” She turned to Cissie. “I’m 
plunged, Ciss, but the luncheon’s off for me. Tell the 
boys. You may have my c.t. See you this afternoon.” 

“I don’t know that you ought—” began Osterhout, 
but was cut short by a quick: 

“Then she’s worse than you pretend.” 

“No; but I don’t want her excited. However, you may 
see her,” he decided. i 

He took her to the hospital and left her there with lies 
mother. On his return for his evening’s visit he asked: 


78 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“How long did the bambina stay?” 

“We had a long talk. Bob, did you notice any change 
in Pat?” 

“No; I don’t think I did. I wasn’t thinking about her.” 

Mona’s beautiful eyes grew pensive. “But you were 
right about her; what you said before.” 

“As to what?” 

“She is going to be attractive to men in her own queer 
style. There’s something about her, a femininity—no, a 
sheer femaleness that’s going to make trouble.” 

“For her or for others?” 

“For her possibly, because of its effect on others. She 
understands it a little herself, already, for she’s very 
precocious. And she’s proud of it. But she’s afraid of 
it, too. Such a talk as we’ve had! She’s a frank little 
beast. Your respectable hairs would have stood on end. 
I’ve been frank with her, too. I had to be; there may not 
be much time. Morituri te —what’s the silly Latin, Bob? 
. . . Oh, don’t look like that, my dear! I didn’t mean to 
hurt you. And I’ve hurt you so much, haven’t I?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” 

“Because you’re so good to me. So it does matter. 
Why are you so good to me. Bob?” 

“You know, Mona.” 

“But I want to hear you say it. . . . No; I don’t! 
That’s my badness coming out again. And I’m going to 
be good now in the time remaining to me. Can’t you see 
me, with a saintly expression of face and piously folded 
hands, waiting submissively like—like somebody on a 
sampler? Somebody very woolly?” 

In spite of his pain he smiled. 

“That’s better,” she cried gaily. “Cheer up. I want 
you in good mood because I’ve something to ask you. 
There’s something I want you awfully to do, and you 
won’t want to do it.” 



FLAMING YOUTH 79 

“Is it very foolish?” he asked indulgently. 

“Imbecile to the verge of asininity. ... Do you believe 
in spiritualism?” 

“No.” 

“What a flat and flattening negative. But I’m not to be 
flattened. If you don’t believe in it, there couldn’t be any 
harm in carrying out my silly little scheme.” 

“Which is?” « 

“I’m going to want to know about Pat. If I don’t, I’ll 
worry.” 

“About Pat?” he queried, not comprehending. “But, 
as she’s away at school I’ll be no more in touch with her 
than you.” 

“I’m talking about afterwards.” 

“Afterwards ?” 

“Yes. After I’m dead. What makes you so slow, Bob? 
I want you to write me.” 

“What? Spirit letters? Through some cheap fraud 
of a medium ?” 

“Oh, no! Direct.” 

“Do you believe they’d reach you, my letters ?” he asked 
sadlv. 

“Not the letters themselves, certainly. I don’t know 
that I actually believe anything about it. But what is 
in the letters might sift through to me in some way we 
don’t understand. It might , Bob,” she pleaded. “I’ve 
heard of strange cases. And, anyway, I should think 
you’d like to write, in case you miss me.” 

“Miss you!” he repeated hoarsely. “Yes; I’ll miss 
you.” 

“Then wouldn’t you give up just a little, tiny time 
to writing me?” she cajoled. “Just a promise to please 
silly me. After I’m dead you needn’t keep it, you know, 
if you don’t believe that I’ll know.” 


80 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Any promise I made you I’d keep, living or dead. 
What would I do with the letters if I did write?” 

“You know the built-in desk-safe in my room? You 
could put them there. You’ll have the combination, for 
you’re to be executor of my will. There’s a large drawer 
at the bottom. ... Of course it’s all foolishness. But— 
won’t you?” 

“You know I’ll do anything you ask.” 

“Yes; I know. Poor old Bob! Write me about all 
the girls; but principally Pat, just as if she were yours, 
too; all that you’d hope for her and fear for her; her 
problems and growth and dangers. She’ll have ’em. 
Perhaps I’ll come back, a haunt, and read your letters— 
you must make ’em very wise, Bob—and whisper your 
wisdom in the ear of Pat’s queer little soul, and warn her 
if need be. . . . Bob, do you know what I really want for 
the girls?” 

“I might guess.” 

“Not goodness; that’s for plain girls. Nor virtue, 
particularly; that’s more or less of a scarecrow. I want 
happiness for them.” 

“Only a little, easy thing like that?” he taunted gently. 

“Well, I’ve had it; a lot of it. ‘I’ve taken my fun where 
I found it.’ Bob, I’m a pagan thing! And perhaps after 
I’ve gone where the good pagans go, I’ll send word back 
to you and invite you to follow—if it’s a proper place for 
a dear old fogy like you. It may not be an orthodox 
heaven, old boy. But there’ll be something doing if Mona 
goes there!” 

But it was not until six months later and from her own 
house that lovely, pagan Mona Fentriss went to her own 
place. Went with an expectant soul and a smile on her 
lips, unafraid in the face of the great, dim Guess as she 
had been in every threat that life had held over her. 


PART II 


CHAPTER VIII 

The front door-button was out of commission. Since 
Constance had come to live at Holiday Knoll, bringing 
her husband with her and taking over the management 
of the place, the bell had developed a habit of being out 
of order. So had many other fixtures, schedules, and 
household appurtenances. Constance always meant to 
put them aright, and sometimes did. But they never 
seemed to stay put. As a housekeeper, Ralph Pentriss 
used to remark with humorous resignation, Connie was a 
grand little society beauty. 

Of the beauty there could be no question. As she sat 
now, on this winter’s night, the glow of the reading lamp 
showing warm and soft upon her loose, rose-coloured 
lounging robe and her dreamy face, she was a picture 
which, unfortunately, lacked any observer. Fred Browning 
was out. Fred was often out in the evenings now, though 
they had been married less than two years. Not that it 
mattered greatly to the young wife. Fred had ceased to 
stimulate her senses; he had never stimulated her imagi¬ 
nation. She got along well enough with him, and equally 
well without him. Substitutes were not wanting. But 
just at the moment she rather wished he were there, 
because she thought she heard someone at the front door, 
though it might be only the beating of the blizzard, and 
it was so much trouble to rouse herself from the easy 
chair and the flimsy novel. That so many things were 

so much trouble was the bane of Constance’s life. Her 

si 


82 


FLAMING YOUTH 


soul had begun to take on fat. Presently her lissome 
body would follow suit. 

Yes; there certainly was someone at the door. She 
could discern now an impatient stamping. Probably 
Bobs, although he had said that he could not come before 
nine to see the baby, who was constantly fretting. 
Another superfluous trouble in a world of annoyances! 
We-ell; on the whole it was less bother to go to the door 
than to look up a maid. Tossing her book aside she 
walked into the hall. As she passed, she pressed an 
electric light button. Only one globe out of the cluster 
responded, and that weakly. 

“Damn!” said Constance. “I forgot to phone the 
company.” 

She threw open the front door. In the storm centre 
stood a man. He wore a long coat lined with seal, a 
coat which the luxurious Constance at once appraised and 
approved, and an astrakhan cap which he lifted, showing 
fair, close waves of hair. He peered into the dim entry. 

“Is this-” he began, and then, in an eager excla¬ 

mation, “Mona!” 

Constance drew a quick breath of shock and amazement. 
“What!” 

“A thousand pardons,” said the stranger. “A stupid 
error.” He spoke with the accent of a cultivated Ameri¬ 
can, but there was about him the vague, indefinable 
atmosphere of an older, riper, calmer civilisation. “Am I 
mistaken in supposing this to be Mrs. Fentriss’s home?” 
he asked courteously. 

“No. Yes. It is,” answered Constance, still shaken. 

“I would have telephoned before presenting myself, but 
the wires are down. What a furious storm! My taxi,” 
he added cheerily, “is stalled in your very largest and 
finest local snowdrift. Is Mrs. Fentriss in?” 



FLAMING YOUTH 


83 


“My mother?” faltered Constance. 

He gazed on her keenly, incredulously. “Your mother? 
That’s hardly possible. Yet—yes. You are wonderfully 
like her.” There was a caressing intonation in his voice 
as he said the words. “Permit me; I am Cary Scott.” 

“Oh!” gasped Constance in dismay. Cary Scott, the 
old romance about which she had heard her father joke 
her mother more than once, concerning which all the 
children had felt a lively curiosity because it was supposed 
to be “different” from Mona’s other little adventures; 
Cary Scott here in the flesh and in tragic ignorance of 
her mother’s death! Commanding herself, she drew aside 
with a slight, gracious gesture which bade him enter. 
Bowing, he passed into the hallway and shook the snow 
from his coat. Not until he had reached the door of the 
library did she gather her forces to tell him. 

“Hadn’t you heard about Mother, Mr. Scott?” she 
asked very gently. 

Her tone stopped him. His eyes were steady as he 
raised them to the lovely, pitying face before him. But 
hollows seemed suddenly to have fallen in beneath them. 
“Not—?” he whispered. 

She inclined her head. “Nearly a year ago.” 

“Why haven’t I heard? Why was I not told?” he 
demanded. 

“Father wrote you, I think. You must sit down.” She 
pushed a chair around for him and, laying light hands 
upon his shoulders, slipped his coat back. “Take it off,” 
she said. 

He obeyed. He was like a man tranced. Seated under 
the lamplight he stared fixedly into a dark corner of the 
room, as if to evoke a vision for his appeasement. Sharply 
intrigued, Constance took the opportunity of observing 
him at her leisure. He w r as, she decided, a delightful 


84 


FLAMING YOUTH 


personality, all the more engaging for that touch of the 
exotic, that hint of potential romance which the men of 
her acquaintance did not have. No woman would have 
called him handsome. His features were too irregular, 
and the finely modelled forehead was scarred vertically 
with a savagely deep Y which mercifully lost itself in the 
clustering hair, a testimony to active war service. There 
was confident distinction in his bearing, and an atmosphere 
of quiet and somewhat ironic worldliness in voice and 
manner. He looked to be a man who had experimented 
much with life in its larger meanings and found it amusing 
but perhaps not fulfilling. Reckoning him contempora¬ 
neously with the implication of that betraying “Mona!” 
of his first utterance, Constance thought: 

“He must be nearly forty to have been one of Mother’s 
suitors. But he looks hardly over thirty.” 

She heard him sigh as he drew his spirit back from far 
distances, and was sensitive to the power of control implied 
in the composed countenance which he turned to her. 

“You should be Constance Fentriss.” 

“Constance Browning,” she corrected. “I’m an old 
married woman of two years’ standing.” 

“Grand Dieu!” he muttered. “I think of you always 
as hardly more than a child. As I used to hear about 
you. One loses touch.” 

“You had not seen my mother for a long time, had 
you?” 

“Very long. Many years. But one does not forget 
her kind.” 

Constance, who had not seated herself during this 
passage of speech, crossed to the mantel, and lifted from 
it a heavily framed photograph which she placed in the 
visitor’s hands. 

J “That was taken a few months before she died.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


85 


“Unchanged!” he breathed. 

Something imperative in Constance’s burgeoning inter¬ 
est in the man drove her to ask: “Did you—were you very 
much in love with her?” 

There was daring in her tone; but there was compassion 
also. Because of his sense of the latter he answered her 
frankly: 

“No. Not, perhaps, as most people understand it. 
Love asks much. I asked—nothing. It was not,” he 
smiled faintly, “as one falls in love and falls out.” 

“Ah?” she returned, questioningly, tauntingly. But he 
held to the graver tone. 

“She was all that dreams could be, and as unattainable 
as dreams. If she was like an angel to me, I suppose I 
was like a boy to her. She used to tell me about you and 
your sisters.” Again he smiled. “Once she said, ‘Wait 
and come back and marry one of them.’ ” 

“But you did not wait,” accused Constance. 

“Nor did you,” he retorted with that swift, ironic 
eye-flash which she was to know so well later. 

She welcomed the change to a lighter, and more familiar 
vein. 

“How should I know?” she mocked. “You sent no word 
of your claim. Is Mrs. Scott with you?” 

“No,” he answered shortly. Then, in suaver tone: “It 
is more than a year now that I have been out of the world. 
The East; wild parts of Hindustan and Northern China; 
and then the South Seas. I have a boy’s passion for 
travel.” 

“But not for your native land. You are an American, 
aren’t you?” 

“I have been. And I want to be again. But I shall 
need help.” 


86 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“We Fentrisses are terribly American. Don’t you 
want us to reclaim you?” 

“Would you? Then I may come back?” 

“You must. Father will want to see you.” 

“And I him. He is well?” 

“Very. Where can he find you?” 

“At the St. Regis for a few days.” 

“Do you think a few days enough to re-Americanize 
you?” 

“Say a few years, then.” He rose and turned to give 
a long look at the portrait of Mona Fentriss which he 
had set on the table. “You have been more than kind 
to me,” he said gravely. “I cannot thank you enough.” 

“I’m afraid I was clumsy and abrupt.” He shook his 
head. “It must have been a shock to you.” 

“Yes. But—dreams do not die. And I still keep the 
dream. And perhaps”—he lifted an appealing gaze to 
her—“perhaps, as a legacy, some little part of the friend¬ 
ship. I may hold that as a hope?” 

“Yes,” said Constance. 

Her fingers stirred in his as he bent and touched light 
lips to her hand. 

Out into the tumultuous night Cary Scott carried two 
pictures, mother and daughter, strangely alike, strangely 
different, which interchanged and blended and separated 
again, like the evanescence of sunset-hued clouds. But it 
was the visual memory of the living woman which even¬ 
tually held his inner eye, the pure, smooth contour of her 
face, the sumptuous curves of the figure beneath the suave 
folds of the clinging robe, the chaste line of the lips con¬ 
tradicted by the half-veiled sensuality of the wide, humid, 
deer-soft eyes. A delicate, but unsatisfied sensuality 
which might yet, as he read it, break down under provo¬ 
cation into reckless self-indulgence. Sensitive by nature 


FLAMING YOUTH 


87 


to beauty in all its implications, inner and outer, he felt 
the enveloping atmosphere of her youth and sweetness, 
and sought, to match it, the swift intelligence, the eager 
responsiveness which had been Mona’s. Had the daugh¬ 
ter inherited these qualities of the mother? If she had, 
she would be irresistible. 

Mona Fentriss, whatever relations she had maintained, 
in her wayward, laughing course of life, with other men 
(wholly unknown and unsuspected by Cary Scott) had 
been to him all that was demanded by the ideal which he 
himself had formed of her; had given him a friendship 
infinitely wise and sweet and clear in spirit. Of Con¬ 
stance he had asked the chance to win a like friendship. 
Yet in his heart, at once hopeful by instinct, and cynical 
by experience, he knew from the evidence of those hun¬ 
gering eyes, that if she gave at all it would be more than 
friendship. And, if she chose to give, would he choose to 
take? From Mona’s daughter, at once so subtly like 
and unlike Mona? Was he already a little in love with 
her? The question was still unsolved when he went to 
sleep. 

After he left, Constance returned to her book. Pres¬ 
ently it dropped from her hand. Dreams seeped into 
the craving eyes. 

Her husband found her so when he came in at midnight. 

“What are you mooning over, Con?” he said testily. 
He was prone to the impatient mood when he had had 
too much to drink. 

“I?” answered his wife. “Oh! Ghosts.” 

“Rats!” said Fred Browning. “Come to bed.” 


CHAPTER IX 


“Who’s the princely party holding Con’s hand in the 
library ?” 

Patricia, home from school for the Easter vacation, 
slouched against Mary Delia’s door as she put her ques¬ 
tion. The child had begun to take on the florescence 
of the woman. Her meagre face had filled out; the lines 
of her slim figure had become firmer, more gracious; the 
knowing eyes deeper of hue, more veiled of intent. She 
was still sallow, but the reproach of “pimply little gnome” 
was no longer applicable. Her trusted Dr. Bobs had 
promised her the complexion of a peach if she would hold 
to his stern regimen of diet for a year, and as she had 
been fairly faithful, though with an occasional lapse into 
her besetting sin of gluttony, the clarification of her 
blood already showed in a soft lustre underlying the duller 
tint of the skin. Her teeth had whitened in perceptible 
degree, and her tongue reddened from its former furry 
grey of replete mornings. She glowed with a conscious 
and eager vitality. 

Startled by the form of the question put to her so 
abruptly, Mary Delia looked up from the golf glove which 
she was mending. “Is he holding her hand?” she said 
unguardedly. 

“Eigure of speech,” returned the airy Pat, perceiving, 
however, that there was something in this. “They look 
pretty chummy, though. Who is he, Dee?” 

“Cary Scott.” 

“Meaning little or nothing to muh. Where’s he from?” 

“All over. He was a friend of Mona’s.” 

88 


„ FLAMING YOUTH 


89 


“Old like that! He doesn’t look it. Visiting our 
flourishing village?” 

“He’s come back to live, I believe.” 

“Here? And Connie’s annexed him, has she? Mar¬ 
ried?” 

“No; not here. He comes down week-ends. Yes; he’s 
married, I believe, but not very much.” 

“Business?” 

“He’s invented some new mechanical thing that the 
mills have to have, and he makes a lot of money out of it.” 

“Crazy about Con?” 

“He’s here a good deal.” 

“How does Freddie take it?” 

“Between cocktails,” returned Dee laconically. 

Pat thought for a moment. “Is Con getting tired of 
him?” 

“Wouldn’t you be?” 

“I? Oh, I’d be sick to death of any man in a month! 
But I thought Con would turn into the domestic breeder 
kind.” 

“I don’t blame Con so much. Freddie’s quit his busi¬ 
ness for drink. They’re miles in debt. Con’s more ex¬ 
travagant than ever. That’s the reason they’re living 
here on Father. Pretty boring for him. He’s getting 
sore, too.” 

“No wonder. The house is like a pig pen.” 

“Con doesn’t pay any attention to it. She hasn’t any 
interest in anything except clothes, and men—principally 
Scott.” 

“Then she is nuts about him.” 

“I don’t know. You never can tell with Con. But I 
know this; Bobs is worried.” 

“Poor old Bobs! He has his troubles with us. But 
I don’t see that this Scott party is any Francis X. Bush- 


90 


FLAMING YOUTH 


man, the male beauty-spot of the movie screen. How 
does he work his little game?” 

Dee tossed the repaired glove into the basket and re¬ 
garded her sister. “Why all the eager questions, 
sweetie?” 

“Don’t be nawsty, pettah,” retorted Pat, who well knew 
what “sweetie” in that tone meant. “I’m awsking you.” 

“Not thinking of organising a rescue party, are you?” 

“I might at that.” 

“A fat chance you’d have against Con. Why, he’d 
chuck you under the chin and tell you to run away to 
your crib.” 

“Then I’d put up my innocent, childish lips and ask 
him to say nighty-nighty nicey-nicey.” 

“Yes; you’re pretty good at that innocent, childish 
lips stuff,” remarked Dee placidly. “About time you 
were outgrowing it, I’d say.” 

Pat glowered. “Oh, you go to hell,” she snapped. 
“No man would ever want to kiss you. You—you dead 
fish.” 

Dee laughed. “Wouldn’t they? I wish they didn’t. 
It’s a rotten nuisance.” 

Pat’s ill humour vanished in interest. “You are a queer 
one,” she said. “How does Jimmieson James like your 
views ?” 

Dee shrugged her slim, clean-muscled shoulders. “He 
dangles along.” 

“Better haul him in before he wriggles off the hook,” 
advised the worldly Pat. “Come on down and show me 
the new suitor.” 

“Do your own butting-in,” yawned Dee. “I won’t.” 

“Oh, verra-well! Here’s trying.” 

Finesse did not mark Pat’s irruption upon the solitude 
h deux in the library. 


FLAMING YOUTH 9t 

“ ’Lo, Con,” was her opening. “Seen T. T. around 
here ?” 

Constance’s companion arose and viewed the new ar¬ 
rival with surprise, amusement and expectation. The 
latter was not immediately fulfilled. 

“No,” said Constance with significant brevity. “It’s 
in the conservatory.” Which was a guess. 

“I’ve looked,” said Pat. Which was a lie. She di¬ 
rected a guileless gaze at Cary Scott. “I think you must 
have been sitting on it,” she said; “my copy of Town 
Topics .” 

“No; I assure you,” he returned. There was a mo¬ 
ment’s pause which he relieved by turning to Constance. 
“This is Miss Patricia?” he asked. 

“Yes; that’s the infant,” returned Constance so dis¬ 
paragingly that Pat at once decided to see it through. 

“Only.half an introduction,” she said, greatly fancying 
herself for her aplomb. “What’s the other half?” 

“Cary Scott, at your service, mademoiselle.” He made 
Her an elaborate bow, twinkling. 

She held out a hand, large, firm, and nervously mod¬ 
elled. “Oh, yes. Dee’s been telling me about you. Such 
a lot.” 

“A charming historian. I hope the history borrowed 
some of the quality.” 

“It wasn’t so dull. Con, are you driving down for 
Dad to-day?” 

“No. You are.” 

“Oh, very well. I can take the car, then. Good-bye, 
Mr. Scott. It was really an awfully interesting history. 
I’d like to hear more of it some day.” 

“That’s a precocious child, Stancia,” said Cary Scott, 
giving to the special name which he had devised for Con¬ 
stance a caressing quality. 


92 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“She’s a terrible brat,” replied the other. 

“She is jour sister and therefore has for me a shadow 
of jour delight about her.” 

“How foreign jou sound when jou saj those things! 

I love it in you.” 

%• 

“Do jou? But jou use the word ‘love’ so lightlj.” 

“I don’t think of it lightlj. No,” she whispered, read¬ 
ing the swdft fire in his ejes and holding him back with 
a light hand upon his shoulder. “Not again. Not now. 
That other time—it frightened me.” 

“Don’t be afraid of me,” he murmured. “I can wait.” 

“Ah, but I’m more afraid of jou when jou wait than 
when jou seek,” she smiled, and he reflected, with warm 
recognisance, that for once she had shown a gleam of 
subtletj, that subtletj which had so enthralled him in 
the mother, for which he was ever eagerlj looking in the 
daughter. “You’ll be at the club dance Saturdaj?” she 
added. 

“Since jou are to be there. Cela va sans dire,” 

Scott, delajed from reaching the club house earlj, 
found the dance in full swing when he got there. It was 
one of the largest and gajest of the season. The elev¬ 
enth commandment as promulgated bj Mr. Volstead, 
“Thou slialt not drink except bj stealth,” had made everj 
man a walking bar-room. Having neglected to provide 
himself with a flask, Scott was quite discomfited when 
Constance, sitting out one of the three dances which were 
all that she had allowed him, railed at him with a charm¬ 
ing air of proprietorship for his negligence. 

“I might pass out on jour hands and jou’d have 
nothing to revive me with.” 

“Possiblj I could borrow some from this jouth,” said 
he as a joung fellow with his shirt gaping open where a 
stud had deserted its post, wavered toward them. 



FLAMING YOUTH 93 

“That’s Billy Grant, Pat’s latest flame,” said Constance. 
“He’s got a wonder, hasn’t he!” 

The youngster steadied himself to approach them. 
“Miss-zz Brow-owning,” he said politely, “could you tell 
me whe-ere Patiz?” 

“No, Billy. I haven’t seen her,” replied Constance 
promptly. 

“I’ve los’ her. And thissiz my dance wither. Seccon- 
extra.” 

Onward he lurched on his quest. “Do be a dear, Cary, 
and get Pat out of Billy’s way,” begged Constance. 

“Of course. Where can I find her?” 

“She’s coming through the further door now. Go and 
stop her. Tell her this is your dance and why. 3 ’ 

Pat greeted the applicant with her quick, wide smile. 
“Yes, I know,” she said. “Billy is rather sunk. Come 
on. I’m all for this music.” She slipped into his arms, 
her body already swaying to the impulses of a half- 
barbaric, half-languorous waltz. ... “I would never 
have thought you’d dance so beautifully,” she presently 
hummed, setting the words to the consonance of the music. 

“Why?” he asked, amused. 

“Men of your age don’t care much about it. Bridge 
for them.” 

“Do I seem so stricken in years?” 

“Grandfather stuff!” She laughed up at him impu¬ 
dently. “You do and you don’t.” Ever alive to phys¬ 
ical impressions she added: “You’re terribly strong, 
aren’t you?” 

“Rather. It was the fad to be in my set in Paris.” 

“Your muscles are like steel; I like the feel of them. 
No; they’re not like steel at all. That’s just one of the 
things people say because other people say them. They’re 
like rubber, hard, live rubber.” 


94 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“I see that you’re of an independent turn of expres¬ 
sion,” he commented mockingly. “You seek the just 

#■ ■ 

word.” 

“But they are, aren’t they? How do you keep that 
way?” 

“A little riding. A little fencing. A little boxing. 
A little swimming. At my advanced age, you see, one 
must preserve oneself.” 

“Now you’re laughing at me. I like it. . . . Why 
don’t you applaud?” she demanded indignantly as the 
music fell silent. “Don’t you want any more of this 
dance with me?” 

“Certainly I do!” He clapped violently, she joining 
him. “Will that serve?” 

Contentedly as a purry kitten she nestled to him as 
the drums signalised the resumption of the tune. “Let’s 
not talk this time,” said she. 

They merged silently into the current of physical 
rhythm about them. Responsive to the music by in¬ 
stinct, guiding with the intuition of the perfect dancer, 
Scott looked about him on the crowded scene. The meas¬ 
ure had swollen to a fuller harmony, taken on a throb¬ 
bing, suggestive quality, and he sensed the reaction in 
the close-joined couples around him. The girls danced 
by him with their eyes drooping, their cheeks inflamed, 
a little line of passion across their foreheads. They 
seemed to cling to their partners with tightening grasp, 
each couple a separate entity, alone with the surge of 
the music and what it covertly implied, the allegro 
furioso of tumultuous, untamable blood. He glanced 
down at the young girl in his arms. Her lashes, long 
and fringed, all but touched the swell of her cheek; her 
lips were lightly parted for the rapid breathing; a little 
pulse beat in her neck. 


FLAMING YOUTH 


95 


“Good God!” he thought. “This child! Does she 
know what it is that she is feeling ?” He felt an access 
of sheer pity; thought that he must speak to Stancia 
of this. 

The music panted itself to silence. Pat lifted smiling, 
unfathomable eyes to his and let them drop. “Oh!” she 
breathed ecstatically. 

“What shall I do with you now, Miss Pat?” he asked. 

“Oh, stick me anywhere. This is the supper number. 
Billy’s my provider. I think he’s on the veranda.” 

Misgivings beset Scott that the errant Billy would 1 
prove a doubtful source of supply, but he took the girl 
out into the dimness. Propped against a corner pillar, 
young Mr. Grant gazed upon the moon with an expres¬ 
sion of foreboding, which was almost immediately justi¬ 
fied by the event. He leaned upon the railing, and it 
became evident that he would not be supping that eve¬ 
ning. Quite the contrary. 

“Down and out,” commented Pat, equally without sur¬ 
prise or resentment. “Let’s go. Take me back to Con. 
Someone will come and get me; I’ve turned down a couple 
of the boys for supper.” 

“Perhaps,” said Scott formally, “you would honour me 
by accepting me#as substitute for the recreant Billy.” 

Pat gave a little, hoarse crow of delight. “How divine 
of you!” She was at that stage of articulate develop¬ 
ment where only the highest-pressure adjective would 
serve her facile emotions. “Come on. I know the best 
corner in the place if somebody hasn’t snitched it al¬ 
ready.” 

The corner proved to be unsnitched. Established 
there, Pat gave her cavalier a large and varied order, 
only to countermand half of it. “I almost forgot Bobs’s 
darn diet,” she grumbled. “You know Bobs?” 


96 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Dr. Osterhout? Yes. We have become quite friends.” 

“I’m glad of that,” she said gravely. 

“Are you? Why? You like him?” 

“I adore him. I would have thought that you two 
would be friends,” she added thoughtfully. 

“Now I wonder why you should think that?” he smiled, 
but instead of awaiting her reply he set out for the food. 

Pat wondered, too. By the time he had returned, 
however, her restless mind had taken another turn. 
“How long have you known us?” she asked. 

“Us?” 

“The Fentriss girls. We’re us.” 

“Ah? Some two months or more.” 

“And you’re almost one of the family.” 

“How do you arrive at that flattering conclusion?” 

“From Dee, and Dad. And you say Bobs has taken 
you in. And Con. Especially Con. Why aren’t you 
having supper with her?” 

“Because I happen to be here.” Quietly though the 
words were spoken a palpable hardening of his manner 
warned her against further impertinences along this line. 
For the moment she shied off, and, removing a macaroon 
which she had filched from his plate after once denying 
it to herself, from between her teeth, inquired casually: 

“Got anything on your hip?” 

Not yet fully initiate in the argot of his native land, 
Scott looked his inquiry. 

“A drink. A flask.” 

“Do you want a drink?” 

6 ‘Why the amazement, Grandfather dear?” 

“Is that a recognised part of your dear Dr. Bobs’s diet?” 

“Bobs would have a fit. He doesn’t know T little Pat 
is out. But wouldn’t a touch of hooch put a bit of a 
dash into the proceedings about now?” 


FLAMING YOUTH 97 

“I assure you, I am finding no lack of interest in the 
proceedings,” he returned drily. 

“Meaning, ‘Don’t get fresh, little child.’ Well, I’m 
no rum-hound. By the way, do you take that patronis¬ 
ing tone with Connie?” 

“Suppose you satisfy your curiosity on that subject 
by asking her.” 

“Now you’re trying to flatten me out like a worm.” 
She contemplated him with mischievous daring in her 
eyes. “I don’t see it,” she stated deliberately. “I don’t 
see it at all.” 

“What don’t you see? I should have thought that 
very little escaped your singularly sharp faculties of 
observation.” 

“You and Connie. I don’t get it.” 

His stare met her glance and turned it aside. But she 
persisted, half laughing: “If you weren’t old enough to 

be her father- Yet you’re not clever enough to be onto 

her. She’s got you going. Do you know what’s the 
matter with Con?” 

“While your views are doubtless valuable, I am not 
aware that I have invited them.” 

“Blighted! But I’m going to tell you just the same. 
Nothing above the ears.” 

“Above the ears?” Scott stared in puzzlement at the 
two blobs of sub-lustrous, dark hair which effectually 
concealed his youthful partner’s organs of hearing. 

“Oh, no brains!” she cried impatiently. “Must I talk 
baby talk to you?” 

“You might talk comprehensible English,” he said 
sternly. “And you might also find a more suitable topic 
than criticism of your sister.” 

She was daring enough to try to meet the cold fire 
of his gaze, but not steadfast enough to endure it. “Now 



98 FLAMING YOUTH 

you’re angry with me,” she accused, her breath catching 
a little. 

Truly Cary Scott was angry with her. But anger 
was secondary to a sudden, startling realisation. He 
felt as if a clear, blinding, chilling light had pierced to 
a cherished place of illusions, betraying its voidness. No 
brains! It was sickeningly true. All through these 
weeks of his yielding to Stancia’s physical charm he had 
unconfessedly harboured the knowledge, met and denied its 
disappointments, its deadening negations in a score of 
phases, by refusing to think them out. Now this bratling 
of the devil had thrown the ray of her withering and 
brutal candour upon his false spiritualisation of a gross 
attachment. Stancia was gentle, she was sweet, she was 
provocative, she was adorably lovely to look upon; but 
—no brains! For a man of Cary Scott’s fastidious 
type of mind, it was a disenchantment beyond all hope 
of restoration. Nulla redintegratio amoris; the ancient 
philosopher was right; there was no such thing as a re¬ 
turn upon the road of love. And. now he knew that it 
never had been love. However potently the attraction 
of Stancia’s beauty might draw him, he would always 
know it for what it was; not the true fire, but a baser 
flame. Enlightenment! And in time, thank God! But 
he was in a still rage with the little prophetess who had 
revealed the omen. Out of the long silence came her half 
whisper: 

“I am a little rotter, aren’t I! But I just couldn’t 
help it!” 

Inadequate though the plea was, he felt inexplicably 
appeased of his wrath. When he was still meditating 
what he should say to this amazing child, footsteps, heavy 
and not all of them steady, sounded on the veranda imme¬ 
diately outside the window at which they were seated. 


FLAMING YOUTH 


99 


Voices, unmuffled by any considerations of caution, came 
clearly to them. 

“Quelque chick, what!” 

‘‘I’ll telephone Mars that she is! And coming every 
minute.” 

“Too easy, say I. You can hug her to a peak.” 

“Something to hug, too, that little Treechie. She’s 
got a teasin’ little way with her.” 

“Guess she teases herself as much as she teases the 
§ther feller.” 

“That teasing game is likely to be double-barrelled,” 
put in a deeper voice. “What was it the old woman in 
that play said about the flapper? ‘Precarious virginity.’ 
Pretty wise, that.” 

“It might also be wise,” cut in Cary Scott’s chiselling 
voice, “for you gentlemen to air your opinions in some 
less public spot.” 

“Oh, Gawd!” said one of the voices. “Who the devil’s 
that?” another. “Le’s beat it,” a third. The footsteps 
thudded away. 

“Chivalrous young America!” commented Scott to 
Pat. “A companion piece to sisterly loyalty.” 

He had meant to sting her, but he was amazed at the 
spasmodic constriction of the face which she turned to 
him. He had not expected that she would be so much 
affected by anything he could say; in fact, he had reck¬ 
oned her rather a thick-skinned and insensitive little per¬ 
son. But now her eyes were set, and her cheeks sallow 
with ebbing blood. 

“The girl they were discussing,” he pursued, with a 
view to giving her time for recovery from his too suc¬ 
cessful stab, “is presumably some man’s sister; perhaps 
the sister of one of their friends. If he had been sitting 
here-” 


*> > > 



100 


FLAMING YOUTH 


‘‘She isn’t any man’s sister,” said Pat chokingly. 

Then he understood. “But they called her ‘Treechie,’ ” 
he said stupidly. 

“That’s one of my nicknames.” 

“My dear!” said Scott pityingly, at a loss for the 
moment in the face of her shamed and helpless fury. He 
laid his hand on hers. 

“I)o you believe it? What they said?” she whispered. 

“No; no. Of course not,” he answered soothingly. 

“You do. Anyway, it’s true.” 

“Can you tell me who those fellows are?” he asked 
grimly. “I’ll find a way to stop their foul chatter.” 

“You can’t mix in it. What good would it do if you 
did half kill them?” For she had read the formidable 
wrath in his face. “Besides,” she concluded sullenly, “I 
tell you it’s true.” 

“Why is it true, Pat?” he asked gently. 

“Because I’m a cheap little idiot. I never realised— 

✓ 

I never knew men talked—that way—about girls.” 

“Men don't. Those were callow boys.” 

“Not all of them. The one that—that spoke about 
the play-” She stopped with her hand to her throaty 

For a moment he studied her working face. “It’s 
hardly worth while, is it?” he said gravely. “You’ve 
come to the end of that phase, haven’t you? How old 
are you, Pat?” 

“Eighteen. Almost. And I’ve been a terrible necker 
ever since—since I began to be grown up. Most girls 
are.” 

“Are they? Why?” 

“I don’t know. The boys sort of expect it,” she an¬ 
swered childishly. “And it’s—it’s fun, in a way.” She 
wriggled like a very schoolgirl. “I got Billy away from 
Cslia Bly that way. And now look at the damn thing!” 



FLAMING YOUTH 


101 


She laughed and the tension was temporarily relieved. 
“Anyway,” she declared resolutely, “here and now is 
where I quit. There’s nothing in it. Unless,” she added 
with an astounding naivete, “it’s somebody that I’m 
quite crazy about.” Anger and pain had left a faint fire 
still in the eyes which she turned to his. “I’m glad it 
was you that were with me when it happened, Mr. Scott.” 

“I was afraid that it only made it the harder for you.” 

“No. Because you understand.” He w r as by no means 
sure that he understood at all, but he made no denial. 
“Have you got any daughters?” 

“No.” 

“I wish I’d had someone like you that I could talk to,” 
she said wistfully. “Dad’s all right. I adore Dad. But 
I couldn’t talk to him like this. I can to you. Isn’t it 
funny! Do you like me a little, Mr. Scott?” Her face, 
upturned to his, was one anxious, honest, hopeful plea. 

“Yes. I like you very much,” he returned soberly. 

“You might adopt me,” she pursued. “On account of 
mother. You w r ere fond of her, weren’t you?” He re¬ 
garded her with a slight frown which vanished as he 
realised that this was no adventurous impertinence such 
as her references to Constance. “I don’t see how you 
could help but be; she was so beautiful. . . . But no; I 
couldn’t be anyone’s daughter but Dad’s, even adopted.” 

“Granddaughter,” suggested Scott mockingly. 

“I take it all back!” she cried, her spirits quite re¬ 
stored. “You aren’t nearly as old as I thought you were; 
and twice as nice. We’ll just be friends, won’t we? And 
I’ll be awfully good and never say anything catty about 
Con again. Come on; there’s the music. Let’s dance. 
This is somebody else’s but I don’t care.” 

At the door she stretched her arms above her head in 
a long sweep, a hovering, expectant gesture as if she were 


102 


FLAMING YOUTH 


going to give herself into a profound and enduring em¬ 
brace, then leaned to him as the swirl of the rhythms 
caught them. He felt her fresh young cheek pressed to 
his, close and warm, and drew away a little. 

“What’s the matter?” she asked naively. “Don’t you 
like it?” 

Perplexed for the moment and a L'ttle startled by the 
sweetness of the contact, he did not answer at once. 

“I thought we were to be friends,” she murmured 
mournfully. 

With a sudden understanding he realised that she had 
nestled to him as unconsciously as a kitten; that her 
natural expression of the merest comradeship was 
physical. In a manner, innocently so. 

After that dance he did not see her again until, just 
before her departure, she dashed up to him to say, “I’ve 
been terribly good all evening. It isn’t so hard.” Then, 
peering at him anxiously: “You don’t despise me, do 
you, Mr. Scott?” 

The innate pathos of it made it hard for him to con¬ 
trol his voice, though he answered easily but sincerely: 

“How could I? We’re friends, you know.” 

“Yes,” she assented with deep content. “We’re 
friends.” 

At home Dee asked her: “Did you try your rescue 
party, kid?” 

“What rescue party?” returned Pat dreamily. “Oh, 
that! I trow some not! He won’t be the one that needs 
help when the water gets deep.” 

“I suppose not,” acquiesced Dee. She thought that 

Pat meant Constance, 


CHAPTER X 


Wandering into the drawing-room on one of her in¬ 
frequent and languid tours of inspection, Constance was 
astonished to find Mary Delia contemplating herself in 
the full-length mirror. She was clad in a new and modish 
bathing suit. 

“What do you think of it?” she asked her elder sister, 
turning slowly about. 

“There’s certainly plenty of it,” was the disparaging 
reply. “Where are you going in it; to church?” 

“To the Dangerfields’ round-robin tennis.” 

“Going to play that way?” 

“Yeppy. We’re going to fool the hot spell. After 
the tennis we christen the new swimming pool. It’s the 
biggest private tank in captivity.” 

“I thought Wally Dangerfield was that. I don’t see 
why you want to mix up with that set, Dee.” 

“What set? They’re the same set as the rest of us. 
What’s the matter with Wally and Sally?” 

“Nothing much except their pace and the way they 
get talked about. You know there have been half a dozen 
near-scandals at their place already.” 

“Not near me,” returned Dee cheerfully. “I can take 
care of mvself.” 

“I grant you that. But won’t Jimmy be awfully 
sore? He doesn’t like the Dangerfields.” 

“Jimmy is sore,” was the indifferent response. 

Indeed, Mr. Jameson James, an insistent formalist in 

his ideas for women though not at all in his ideas of 

f *Unen, had most unwisely essayed a veto upon Dee’s at- 

103 




104 


FLAMING YOUTH 


tendance, only to be reminded by that untamed virgin 
that they were not yet engaged, and that, even if they 
were, it was by no means certain that she would meekly 
take orders from him. She spoke with unruffled good 
humour. Mr. James had departed in great ill humour. 

“I like Jimmy when he’s furious,” remarked Dee. “He’s 
so much more human.” 

“You’ll lose him yet,” warned Constance. “Who’s your 
partner for the tennis?” 

“Paul de Severin was to have been but he’s held up 
in Washington. I thought I’d borrow Cary Scott if you 
don’t mind.” 

“Why should I mind?” returned the other moodily. 
“He isn’t my property.” 

“Had a scrap?” 

“No.” Constance brooded for a moment, then made 
one of those disclosures characteristic of the peculiarly 
frank relations existing between all three of the sisters. 
“Dee, Freddie’s been borrowing money from Cary.” 

Dee whirled and stared. “The devil!” she ejaculated. 
“He’ll never pay it back.” 

“I don’t suppose Cary expects it back.” 

“What does he expect, then?” 

“I don’t know,” answered Constance slowly. 

“Humph! I do. Are you going to pay, Connie?” 

“If I did pay—that way—would I be half as rotten 
as Freddie?” demanded the wife savagely. 

“That depends. Are you in love with Cary?” 

“I don’t know,” muttered the beauty. “I thought I 
was. Then I found out about Freddie and it sickened me 
so that I don’t know where I stand.” 

Dee ruminated. “Perhaps that’s why Freddie did it. 
He’s no fool.” 

“He’s a drunkard. That’s worse.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


105 


“Poor old Con! I wonder what Cary thinks of it all.” 

“That’s what I’m afraid to think about.” 

“Then you are in love with him. See here, Con; have 
you been borrowing from him, too?” 

Constance’s exquisite, self-indulgent face was set and 
hard as she stared past her sister. “He’s paid a bill 
or two. I didn’t dare take them to father.” 

A soft whistle on a single, low note issued from Dee’s 
lips. “That’s not in the book of rules.” 

“I know it. But he was so wonderful about it. You’d 
think that I was the one conferring the favour by taking 
his”—Constance gulped—“his money.” 

“Yes. Cary’s a thoroughbred. Whatever happens I 
can’t see that Freddie has any kick coming. Maquereau!” 

<{ What’s that?” 

“Tasty French slang. The English is shorter and 
uglier. Con, how much are you in for?” 

“Too much. . . . You marry money, Dee,” counselled 
Constance fiercely. “It lasts. The other thing doesn’t.” 

“With me it doesn’t even begin. Then I can take 
Cary ?” 

“Of course. I almost wish you’d never bring him 
back.” 

“It might be safer,” agreed the other. “I’ll go and 
wire him.” 

Dorrisdale knew the elaborate establishment of the 
Dangerfields, built out of war profits at the back of the 
golf course, as “The Private Athletic Club.” Everything 
about it was based upon sports, and the clique which 
frequented it was linked in a common bond of physical 
fitness, a willingness to bet any amount on anything, 
and capacity for hard drinking. It boasted expensive 
stables, an indoor and two outdoor tennis courts, a squash 
and racquets building, and, in the middle, the sixty-foot 


106 


FLAMING YOUTH 


swimming tank just completed. Sally Dangerfield, a big- 
eyed, softly rounded brunette whose air of rather 
amorous languor concealed a feline vitality and strength, 
had a penchant for small parties, many in a season. This 
opening tennis party of the season included but eight 
couples. Walter Dangerfield, robust, hairy, loud-voiced 
and generous of hospitality, announced to the arriving 
guests that there would be first and second prizes worth 
striving for, also that, while it was a long time beween 
sets, it would be a shorter period between drinks, in 
proof of which he indicated tubs of ice housing bottles 
of the famous Dangerfield punch. 

The intense, unseasonable heat bred an immediate 
thirst, appeasement of which enhanced the joyousness 
of the occasion if not the quality of the tennis. Thanks 
to a quality of comparative abstemiousness on the part of 
both, Dee and her partner won against a pair who were 
normally their betters. The prize was a magnum of 
champagne apiece, and that they should celebrate by 
opening it immediately was, of course, de rigueur in the 
Private Athletic Club. The swim which followed was 
signalised by the appearance, upon a specially con¬ 
structed raft, of a “submarine cocktail” invented by the 
host for the occasion. By dinner time the party had 
accumulated what was universally regarded as a highly 
satisfactory start. 

Over the luxurious repast the heat settled like a steamy 
blanket. It was too hot to talk, it was too hot to sing 
(though several ambitious souls tried to pretend that it 
wasn’t), it was too hot to dance between courses, it was 
too hot to do anything but drink. There was a gasp of 
relief when the hostess announced that coffee would be 
served outside, and a groan of disappointment when a 
splash of lukewarm rain heralded a thunderstorm which 


FLAMING YOUTH 


107 


came booming and belching up from the west. Pent 
within the stagnant house the guests established them¬ 
selves in the big living-room and offered various sugges¬ 
tions for amusement, each of which was promptly re¬ 
jected as calling for too much effort. 

Wally Dangerfield was just saying, “The time has now 
arrived, children, for a new and spine-tickling drink 
which—” when the crash came. 

.It seemed to precede rather than follow the blinding 
stab of radiance which ripped through the outer dark¬ 
ness, dimming the electric lights to futile sparks for the 
thousandth of a second before they*went out. The great, 
stone structure rocked with the concussion. One thin, 
high shriek sounded. Then silence. Wally Dangerfield’s 
voice boomed through the blackness: 

“Anyone hurt?” 

“I’m alive.” “Present.” “Battered but in the ring.” 
“Missed me.” “Whose hair is that singeing?” “Kame- 
rad! Call off the Big Bertha.” The replies came, shaky, 
flippant, with forced laughter, with bravado. It be¬ 
seemed good sports to show a front under fire, and they 
did it. 

Matches were struck. Servants came with two feeble 
candles. The entire electrical establishment of the house 
was out of commission. The host promptly dispatched 
a car to the local plant with instructions to bring back 
an expert if it was necessary to kidnap him. 

With that one terrific discharge the storm had spent 
its greatest fury. It retired, leaving the steaming world 
immersed in humid heat, and the air full of rotted elec¬ 
tricity. The guests tingled to it; it thrilled in their 
senses as well as their nerves. After the sobering sense 
of peril escaped, there followed a relaxing reaction of 
solvent ties and conventions, of sudden and reckless au- 


108 FLAMING YOUTH 

i ' 

dacities. A warm puff of wind doused one of the feeble 
candles; the other was only sufficient to produce a pro¬ 
vocative twilight. A silence significant and languorous, 
broken only by murmurs and snatches of soft, protesting 
laughter settled upon the dim room. Even Dee’s nerves 
of iron responded. Leaning back on her divan to catch 
a wandering breath of air she felt a man’s hand pressing 
upon her shoulder, a man’s breath soft upon her neck. 
With her ready young strength, she pushed back the 
wooer. 

“Not for me,” she said quietly. 

“Oh, don’t be a prude,” implored a straining whisper. 
“Everything goes to-night.” She thought it was Harry 
Mercer’s voice. 

Evading him she got to her feet, made her way toward 
the door, and stumbled upon a chaise longue occupied 
by two close-clasped figures. 

“Beg your pardon,” she said nonchalantly; but she 
was vaguely stirred by all this suggestion, not to disgust, 
which would have been her normal retroaction, but to a 
wistful wonderment. What did they see in it? What 
was it that she was missing out of life? Was she abnor¬ 
mal? Or just fastidious? Across the room she could 
discern the sumptuous outlines of Sally Dangerfield’s fig¬ 
ure, dark against the background of a flannelled figure. 

“Why not start something, Sally?” she suggested. 

The hostess laughed. “It’s starting itself, isn’t it? 
Haven’t you got your self-starter working? But I guess 
you’re right. Help me find some more lights.” 

“Why lights?” murmured a sleepy-toned protestant. 
“It’s more comfortable as it is.” 

“Who said ‘comfortable’?” growled another. “It’s 
hotter than ever.” 

“Wish I were back in the pool,” said a woman. 


FLAMING YOUTH 109 

“Grand little idea!” boomed Dangerfield. “Let’s all 
go in!” 

‘‘What! In our wet things?” objected young Mrs. 
Redfern. “I wouldn’t put my clammy stockings on again 
for a million swims.” 

“Why wear stockings?” 

“Why wear any tiling?” cried someone in a tone of 
inspiration. 

“That’s an idea!” shouted Dangerfield. “A swimming 
party, a la Adam-and-Eve in the warranted respectable 
darkness. Who’s on?” 

“Come off it, Wally!” said a woman’s voice. “You’ve 
got only one pool.” 

“We’ll splice two tennis nets together and run them 
down the middle for a barrier.” 

“Why not?” cried the high-pitched, excited voice of 
Mrs. Carson. “We’re ail married here.” 

“Not that I know of,” remarked Dee. 

“Not that anybody knows of for me,” added Emslie 
Self ridge in a voice of mincing propriety. “Wanted, a 
chaperon.” 

“You two can stand on the bank and be policemen,” 
suggested the hostess. “One on each side.” 

“Not on your life,” objected one of the men. “One 
go, all go!” 

The popping of a champagne cork expressed the ex¬ 
plosive quality of the neurotic atmosphere. “Come bn, 
Dee,” whispered Sally Dangerfield. “If you quit now 
it will gum a good game.” 

“Oh, well, you can’t bluff me,” returned Dee aloud. “I 
hate bathing suits anyway.” 

There was a shout of acclaim. The party organised 
and moved forward across the dripping courtyard under 
the guidance of a pair of lights. The men rigged the 


110 


FLAMING YOUTH 


nets while the women retired to the squash court, desig¬ 
nated as their dressing room. There they disrobed with 
feverish laughter and jerky bits of talk. This adventure 
had given a fillip to even their sated appetite for sen¬ 
sation. 

“Who’ll go first?” asked one in the gloom. 

“Match for it,” came the answering suggestion. 

“Oh, piffle and likewise pish!” cut in Viccy Carson’s 
shrill giggle. “I’ll be the goat. Put a dimmer on that 
light, someone.” 

A moment later Dee heard her call at the end of the 
passage: “Anybody present in case I fall in?” 

Several male voices answered: “Stout sport!” “Who’s 
the pioneer?” “Sally.” “No; it’s little Viccy.” 

“Shinny-on-your-own-side!” called Mrs. Carson. “Lis¬ 
ten for the splash. Come on, you girls!” 

“We’re coming.” Two splashes almost simultaneous 
echoed sharply against the bare walls, followed by others 
mingled with shrieks, laughter, chokings and gurglings. 
Dee, reluctant, found herself alone in the passage way. 

Like many women of unaroused temperament she pre¬ 
served a sort of remote and proud consciousness of her 
body, a physical reticence. The gross implications of 
contact, the prurient stimulus to the imagination in what 
was going on in the pool, held her back. Yet she was 
conscious of some participation in the excitement, too; 
the lewd mob-psychology of that mixed group spurred 
her while it revolted her finer instincts. But it was her 
sportsmanship that finally urged her forward. After 
all, she had agreed to join. Backing out now would be 
pretty yellow. Her hand was fumbling along the open 
door when another burst of merriment checked her. 

“I’ve caught me a mermaid over the net.” 

“Reel her in, Bill.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


111 


“So’ve I. Mine’s got a bathing cap on.” 

“No fair, bathing caps. This is the Garden of Eden.” 

“No; it’s the fountain of Eternal Youth. Steady on 
the net, there!” 

“Students! Students!” cried Sally Dangerfield in a 
voice of chiding laughter. “Care beful!” 

“Who’s who in this part of America? Call the roll.” 

The roll! Dee’s hesitations were resolved. She must 
go forward now. She stretched out a groping hand and 
held it, stiffened in mid-air. Footsteps were close behind 
her; heavy, shod footsteps. 

“Who’s there?” she challenged sharply. 

No answer. She turned, angry and uncertain. The 
footsteps had stopped. She had gathered her forces to 
call when the appalling thing happened. 

Over her burst a great flood of light. Every globe 
in the passageway and the court back of it was sending 
out its pitiless rays upon her nakedness. A bisected 
bar of radiance shot forth into the tank-room, illuminat¬ 
ing it from end to end. Pandemonium broke out; 
shrieks, flounderings, catcalls, and above it all the thun¬ 
dering profanity of Wally Dangerfield calling down ven¬ 
geance upon the fool who had played the trick. With 
the trained athlete’s readiness of action in a crisis, Dee 
turned, leapt backward, tore the heavy door loose from 
the clamp which held it open, and slammed it. 

“Saved!” yelled a gleeful voice outside. 

Dee heard a short, deep, dismayed exclamation behind 
her. She bent forward against the closed door, her 
proud little head bowed against her wrists. With a click 
the darkness shut down again. The footsteps came 
toward her, but she was no longer afraid, for she had 
seen; she was only bitterly ashamed. Folds, cool and 
light, enveloped her shoulders; she smelt the odor of wet 


112 


FLAMING YOUTH 


rubber and gratefully drew the long raincoat about her. 

“Turn on the light, please,” she directed quietly. 

It flashed, intolerable to her eyes. When her vision 
could bear the strain she looked up and saw the man 
standing a few paces away with his kitbag of implements 
beside him, dressed in working garb. His face was pallid, 
amazed, and beautiful. 

“I never thought to see you again,” he said breath¬ 
lessly. 

“You’ve seen all there is of me to see,” giggled Dee 
with the inanity of sheer nerve-shock, and could have 
killed herself for hatred and fury at her untoward re¬ 
sponse. 

He made no comment upon this; only looked at her 
with incredulous pain. 

“What are you doing here?” she asked. 

“Repairing the electric plant. I’m a workman. As I 
told you.” 

“I thought it was a joke.” 

“No.” He listened to the confused sounds from be¬ 
yond the door. “I seem to have been inopportune,” he 
remarked with quiet grimness. “A swimming party, 
isn’t it?” 

“Yes.” 

“More or less informal, I judge.” 

Dee felt a hot wave submerging her. “You could see 
for yourself.” 

“Quite so. You were on your way to join it?” 

“Yes, I was,” she retorted defiantly but with an in¬ 
credible inclination to weep. 

“Pray don’t let me detain you.” 

“Please,” whispered Dee. 

His face changed. He took a step toward her, and 
stopped. 


FLAMING YOUTH 


113 


A shriek, too authentic in its terror to be misinter¬ 
preted, penetrated the heavy door, followed by a babel. 

“Turn on that light!” “Open the door.” “No! No!” 
“She’s drowned, I tell you.” “Damn it, where’s that 
switch ?” 

The electrician threw the door open, made a quick 
movement along the wall, and every detail of the scene 
leapt forth into bold significance. The women were hud¬ 
dled along the side of the pool, all except plump Mrs. 
Grant who was absurdly striving to draw an end of the 
net about her, and Sally Bangerfield who was bending 
above the slim, motionless nudity of Viccy Carson, 
stretched along the stairs. 

“I stepped on her,” wailed Sally. “She was lying on 
the bottom.” 

Half of the men had scattered foe their clothes. The 
others stood, shamed and uncertain, except Cary Scott. 
In the face of reality in this calamitous form he had 
remembered an early emergency regimen, thrown himself 
down beside the woman, and with lips pressed to her 
inanimate mouth was striving to stimulate her flaccid lungs 
to induce breathing. Desisting for a moment he called: 

“She’s alive, I think. Get a doctor.” 

“Phone for Osterhout, somebody,” shouted Dan- 
gerfield. 

“Wire’s down,” groaned Grant. 

“Then get a car and go like hell!” 

“My car is outside,” said the electrician. “Where am 
I to go?” 

“I’ll show you,” said Dee. “Quick!” 

Together they darted into the night. Crossing the 
pebbled courtyard, Dee involuntarily cried out. 

“What is it?” he demanded. 


114 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“My foot. I forgot I had no shoes. It doesn’t mat¬ 
ter. Go on.” 

He swung her strongly into his arms and did not set 
her down until he had reached the car, when he lifted 
her to the seat. It was as well that he had. Such was 
the yielding of her body in every nerve and muscle as he 
took her that she could not have stood upright. 

A light in Dr. Osterhout’s laboratory showed him at 
work over some test tubes. 

“Bobs!” called Dee. “Come out. There’s been an ac¬ 
cident. We’ve got a car.” 

In less than a minute they were retracing their course 
at wild speed, the electrician driving with consummate 
control while Dee acquainted Osterhout with the main 
facts. As they came to a stop in the yard Dee turned 
to the volunteer chauffeur. 

“Will you wait for me?” she asked in a tone that made 
Osterhout turn to look at her. 

“Yes.” 

Within they found the victim violently ill in the midst 
of a half-dressed and vastly relieved group. 

“None the worse for it,” Osterhout reported to Dee 
after attending the victim. “A little too much water 
for comfort. And something besides water, wasn’t 
there ?” 

“Yes.” 

“A good deal of it?” 

“Plenty for all hands.” 

“A rough party?” 

“About the usual, at this house.” 

“Don’t you think you’re out of place in that gallery, 
Dee?” 

“Oh, don’t lecture me, Bobs,” said the girl wearily. 


FLAMING YOUTH 


115 


“I’m through.” But it was another, not Bobs, who was 
the inspiration of that resolve. 

To the other, patient in the sighing darkness, she re¬ 
turned. “She’s all right,” she informed him. “But it 
was a close call.” 

“Scott saved her, I expect,” he replied absently. “He 
knew the method.” 

“Do you know Cary Scott?” she asked, startled. 

He hesitated. “I did once. I should hardly have ex¬ 
pected to find him at this kind of an orgy.” 

“It isn’t as bad as it looks,” she defended weakly. 

“You told me, didn’t you, that you were going into 
the pool with the others?” 

“Yes. But you don’t understand. Will you wait 
until I go in and get my clothes on?” 

“I—don’t—think—so,” he said with palpable effort. 

She gathered all her resolution. “Aren’t you going to 
take me home?” 

Through the darkness came the sound of a deep-drawn 
breath. 

“No,” said his voice, both hard and sad. Only the 
sadness remained as he continued. “You see, I had ideal¬ 
ised you.” 

“You needn’t have,” she retorted bitterly. “I’m just 
like other girls.” 

“So I see. I wish to God I’d never seen you!” 

“There’s no reason why you should ever see me again,” 
she answered with rising spirit. 

“Not the slightest,” he agreed dolorously. “Good¬ 
bye.” 

•/ 

She turned and went into the building. 

As Dr. Osterhout had no car, Scott and Dee drove him 
back to his place. 


116 FLAMING YOUTH 

“Who was your friend in the service car, Dee?” asked 

the physician. 

“His name is Wollaston.” 

Cary Scott gave a start. “Wollaston! You know, 1 

thought I caught a glimpse- Then I supposed that my 

eyes had gone wrong in the sudden light. He was in 
working clothes, wasn’t he?” 

“Yes. lie was the electrician from the plant.” 

“Stanley Wollaston? Electrician? It can’t be the 
same.” 

“It is. He recognised you and said that he used to 
know you.” 

“Know me! Good God! I should say so! We were in 
hospital together for weeks in the war. Afterwards I 
visited him at their place in Hertfordshire. He was a 
poet and a dreamer then. I remember now. I heard that 
his branch of the family went broke.” 

“W T here did you know him, Dee?” asked Osterhout. 

“Oh, it’s a long story, Bobs,” said the girl lightly. 

Herein she said what was not true. It was a short 
story; short and vivid and bewildering. In the darkness 
she ran over the whole scope of it, every detail as clear as 
if it had not occurred nearly a year before: the breakdown 
of her motor car in the open country near Rahway; the 
stranger on the bank of a stream who had put down his 
rod and come to her aid, a roughly dressed stranger with 
questing eyes and a quaint turn of speech; the long and 
patient tinkering, with the mechanism, ending in a second 
collapse; the luncheon offered and shared, the talk that 
followed, a long, long talk such as Dee had never before 
known, running through luminous hours, touching all the 
realms of fancy until the incredulous sun turned his face 
from them„and went down; the drive back to the village 
where she left him; his final words, “I am resisting an 



FLAMING YOUTH 


117 

intolerable temptation when I say no more than good-bye 
and thank you,” and then nothing until now. 

Scott’s voice broke in upon her meditations. “I must 
find out where he is.” 

“I don’t believe I would, Cary,” she advised after Oster- 
hout had bidden them good-night. 

“What? Not look up old Stanley? Why not?” 

“I think he’s cut himself off from all the old life. He— 
he’s a queer person.” 

Until the car drew in at Holiday Knoll Scott thought 
that over in silence. Then he laid a friendly hand over 
Dee’s. “Old girl,” he said gently, “you seem to know a 
lot about him.” 

“So I do. You can learn a lot in an afternoon.” 
“There’s a lot to learn. He’s a wonderful person. 
Pretty tough to find him like this. . . . Are you really 
interested in him, Dee?” 

“Who ? Me ? I should say not!” returned Dee hardily. 
“I’m going to marry Jimmie James.” 


CHAPTER XI 


Ripples from the swimming party spread to wash far 
shores. Although the participants had been sworn to 
secrecy, the details had of course been whispered confi¬ 
dentially, adorning themselves with rich imaginings as 
they travelled. For this, the inopportune electrician was 
blamed, the indictment against him being strengthened by 
the astounding fact that Wally Dangerfield, seeking to 
bribe him into a promise of silence, had been effectually 
snubbed. To the indirect procurement of the outsider was 
attributed a specially lively brace of paragraphs in Town 
Topics , even less veiled than was typical of that journal’s 
transparent allusions. Penetrating within the virginal 
confines of the Sisterhood School where it was naturally 
upon the Index Expurgatorius, thetpublication entranced 
Pat and also contributed in no small degree to her 
prestige. Having a sister who was involved in a T.T. 
scandal was feather for any girl’s cap! 

Pat cherished the glittering ambition of one day 
appearing in those glorifying pages herself. 

She wrote to Dee begging to be told all about it. In 
return came a letter informing her of her sister’s engage¬ 
ment to Jameson James. Connie also wrote saying that 
it had come off at last, it was a very good thing, and 
everybody was satisfied. But the genuine opinion of the 
betrothal went forth from the pen of Robert Osterhout to, 
or perhaps only toward, the dead Mona. 

“I do not pretend to understand it, my dearest,” he 
wrote, “and what I do not understand I do not like. The 

scientific spirit of resentment. Dee is still unawakened. 

118 


FLAMING YOUTH 119 

James has no appeal for her; of that I am satisfied. It 
will not be he who interprets for her her womanhood. 
Perhaps it will not be anyone. Nevertheless, our proud 
Dee has grown inexplicably docile, almost meek. And 
Jimmy inspires me with a daily desire to kick him, by 
adopting a condescending attitude toward her, as if he 
were doing quite a noble thing in marrying her. Such is 
the position in which she has been put by that infernal 
‘Dangerfield Dip’ episode, as it is generally called. In 
some way, though I don’t know how, the engagement was 
the result of that party. From what I can learn, the 
swim an naturel was playful rather than vicious; but the 
scandal has been lively. There was a strange passage 
between Dee and a workman who seems to be a gentleman 
under cover, which puzzled me. Disturbs me, too, a bit. 

. . . How you may be laughing at all this, my darling, 
with your wider, deeper vision! 

“Holiday Knoll will be duller when Dee leaves. To 
me it has been an empty shell since your bright spirit 
went out of it. Yet I derive my sad satisfactions in 
looking after the girls as best I may and in trying to 
make myself hold to the belief of some intangible contact 
with you through these letters. Ralph is at home very 
little. When Pat comes back the place will liven up 
again. Perhaps my tired old ears will recapture from 
her some of the music of life with which you filled the 
place. ... I wish that Dee were less still and self-con¬ 
tained. She doesn’t talk to me any more; not as she 
used to.” 

To all the Fentriss household Dee was a puzzle in the 
days following her engagement, not less to herself, Oster- 
Hout suspected, than to the others. Home early from 
school, because of an outbreak of scarlet fever there, 


120 


FLAMING YOUTH 


Pat complained to him, sitting perched on an arm of his 
chair with a hand on his shoulder. 

“Bobs, Dee is moony.” 

“Is she? And what is ‘moony’ ?” 

“You know she is,” returned Pat, scorning to waste 
time on obvious definitions. “Isn’t her engagement 
going all right?” 

“So far as I can judge. She hasn’t confided in me.” 

“Bad sign. In some girls it would be a good sign. Not 
in Dee,” pronounced the oracular Pat with her head on 
one side like a considering and sagacious bird. 

“Has she talked to you?” 

“No; she hasn’t. Bet you she will, though. Dee’s a 
lot more chummish with me than she used to be.” 

“Because Connie is married. That throws Dee back 
on you.” 

“It ought to throw her back bn Jimmiejams. I’m not 
wild about T. Jameson James, Bobs. He’s rather a 
sob.” 

“What have you got against your future brother-in- 
law ?” 

“Oh, he’s so stiff and bumpy. So darn impressed with 
his own correctness. And it’s mostly bluff. He tried 
to kiss me last night.” 

Osterhout’s face darkened for the moment, but he said: 
“Why not? You’re only a child to him, and one of the 
family.” 

“Brotherly stuff; I know. Only it wasn’t too broth¬ 
erly. Well,” she laughed knowingly, “I don’t suppose 
he gets much of that sort of thing from Dee.” 

“Dee’s a strange little person,” said the doctor ab¬ 
sently. 

“She’d be my idea of nothing to be engaged to if I were 
a man.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 121 

Which opinion she later expressed, in slightly modified 
terms, to the subject of it. 

“Oh, well, Jimmy understands,” responded Dee neg- 
ligently. 

“I don’t believe any man understands. I don’t be¬ 
lieve you understand anything about it yourself.” 

“Don’t I!” muttered Dee. 

Pat stared with all her big eyes. “Well, do you?” 

“Pat,” said the other, fidgetting with an unlighted 
cigarette—she had taken to smoking, although it was 
bad for her golf, since her engagement—“you’ve kissed 
men.” 

“What if I have?” retorted Pat, instantly on the 
sullen defensive. “Everyone does. You have.” 

“Men have kissed me. It’s different.” 

“I’ll cable the Emperor of Japan it’s different,” 
chuckled the slangy Pat. 

“What do you get out of it?” 

“You’ve got a nerve to ask me that; you, an engaged 
girl!” 

“I’m asking because I don’t know.” 

“Tell you one thing, then,” said Pat earnestly. “I 
wouldn’t marry any man that couldn’t make me know.” 

Dee murmured something that sounded like “Might 
just as well.” 

Thus interpreting it the younger sister returned: 
“Yes; you might. You’re different.” 

“I’m not different. I always thought I was, until-” 

“Until!” cried Pat in great excitement. “Until what? 
Who’s the man? And when did it happen?” 

“It never happened.” 

“Then you’re a dam’ fool,” replied the other with con¬ 
viction. “If I was crazy about a man I bet I’d kiss him 
if it was only for—for experiment.” 



122 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“I’ve always thought that sort of thing was imbecile. 
Sort of sickening.” 

“Do I know him?” demanded the practical Pat. 
“No.” 

“Evens and odds I do. Tell Pattie,” she wheedled. 

With face gloomily averted, Dee pursued her main 
preoccupation. “Do you feel when you kiss a man as 
if all your nerves were strung wires and an electric shock 
went flaming along them and then died out and left you 

plan?” 

“Oh!” jeered Pat softly. “And you claim that you’ve 
never been really kissed.” 

“I haven’t. But he—he lifted me in his arms once. 
And I felt his heart beating. . . . And then afterwards, 
do you hate and despise yourself for letting it affect you 
that way?” queried the neophyte of passion, interpreting 
dimly the sharp revulsion of her undefeated maidenhood 
against its own first weakening toward surrender. 

“No. Of course I don’t. Why should I?” Pat re¬ 
flected. “I have been ashamed, though—a little. But 
that was because of what someone said to me about it. 
A friend. He made it seem cheap.” 

“Cheap? Oh, no; it wasn’t cheap. But that’s what 
I felt; that ashamedness afterward. As strongly as I felt 
the other. Stronger.” 

Instinctive psychologist enough to know that the re¬ 
bound is never as powerful as the impact Pat disbelieved 
this. “Just the same I think you’re taking a big chance 
marrying Jimmy. Why don’t you marry the—the 
thriller?” 

“Don’t!” snapped Dee. “You’re making it cheap 
now.” 

“But why don’t you?” persisted the junior. 

“I couldn’t.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


123 


“Is he married already? That would be binding!” 

“No. I don’t know,” Dee amended with a startled 
realisation of how little she did know in comparison with 
what she felt. “He might just as well be. I’ll never see 
him again.” 

“I would,” asserted Pat. “If it was that way with me. 
If he was the only one.” 

“Of course he’s the only one. Could you feel that with 
any man? I can’t understand that,” marvelled Dee. 

“Oh, no! Not with just anyone. I’d have to like him. 
Quite a good deal. It isn’t so hard to like ’em when they 
make love to you. But I’m off’n that stuff,” sighed Pat, 
turning demure. “There’s nothing in it.” Again she 
thought of Mr. Scott and that evening of disastrous 
revelation at the club. His influence had persisted. She 
quite prided herself that it had. She had thought much 
about him as one might think of a benign guardian and 
had written once to bespeak the continuance of their 
friendship. “How’s Con’s affair coming on?” she asked, 
as a logical mental sequitur. 

“With Cary Scott? He’s away. Back in Paris for 
a couple of months’ stay.” 

_ “Do you like him, Dee?” 

“Yes. A lot.” 

“He isn’t the man, is he?” demanded Pat sharply. 

Dee’s laughter was refutation enough. “Catch me 
ooaching Connie’s game. It couldn’t be done.” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” replied the other airily. “Mr. 
Scott’s got too much brains for old Con. Do you think 
She’s crazy over him?” 

“I think she misses him.” 

“When’s he coming back?” 

“In time for the wedding, anyway.” 

“The wedding! When is it, Dee?” 






FLAMING YOUTH 


124 

“Second week in July,” said Dee without enthusiasm, 

“So soon! Am I going to be a bridesmaid?” 

“No.” 

“Oh-h-h-h-h!” wailed Pat. “Pig!” 

“You’re to be maid of honour.” 

Pat gave her little, hoarse crow of ecstasy. “How 
darling of you! That’s too divine! Are you going to 
give me my frock?” 

Dee nodded. They talked clothes, absorbedly. When 
she got up to go Pat leaned over and kissed her sister, 
the first time since they were children that she had done 
this except as a formality of family life. 

“I almost wish you weren’t going to do it, though, 
Dee,” she murmured. 

“I dcn’t,” said Dee resolutely. 


CHAPTER XII 


“If I could find it in my heart, dearest one, to blame 
you for anything, it would be for sending little Pat 
to the Sisterhood School.” (So wrote Robert Oster- 
hout to Mona Fentriss.) “With the best of intentions 
they wreck a mind as thoroughly as house-wreckers gut 
a building. It was your choice and I dare not change 
it. Even if I could persuade Ralph to take her out of 
that environment and send her to Bryn Mawr or Vassar 
or Smith, which is where she ought to be, she would 
rebel. She has a contempt for ‘those rah-rah girls/ a 
prejudice bred of the shallow and self-sufficient snobbery 
which is the basic lesson of her scholastic experience. To 
be sure, they have finished her in the outward attributes 
of good form, but most of that is a natural heritage which 
any daughter of yours would have. She can be, when on 
exhibition, the most impeccable little creature, sparkling, 
and easy and natural and charmingly deferential toward 
the older people with whom she comes in contact—when 
she chooses. For the most part she elects to be calmly 
careless, slovenly of speech and manner, or lightly impu¬ 
dent. To have good breeding at call but not to waste 
it on most people—that is the cachet of her set. 

“But these are surface matters. It is the inner woman 
—yes, beloved—our little Pat is coming to conscious and 
dynamic womanhood—which concerns me now and would 
concern you could you be here. Appalls me, too. But 
perhaps that is because my standards are the clumsy 
man-standards. What is she going to get out of life for 

herself? What does all this meaningless preparation, 

125 


126 FLAMING YOUTH 

aside from the polishing process, look to? If Kers were 
just a stupid, satisfied mind, a pattern intellect like 
Constance’s, it would not so much matter. Or if she had 
the self-discipline and control which Dee’s athletics have 
given her, I should be less troubled. But Pat’s is a 
strange little brain; hungry, keen and uncontrolled. It 
really craves food, and it is having its appetite blunted 
by sweets and drugs. Is there nothing that I can do? 
I hear you ask it. Yes; now that she is at home I can 
train her a little, but not rigorously, for her mind is too 
soft and pampered to set itself seriously to any real task. 
In the days of her childish gluttony I used to drive her 
into a fury by mocking her for her pimples, and finally, 
by excoriating her vanity, got her to adopt a reasonable 
diet. The outer pimples are gone. But if one could see 
her mind, it would be found pustulous with acne. And 
there can I do little against the damnable influence of 
the school which has taught her that a hard-trained, 
clean-blooded mind is not necessary. The other girls 
do not go in for it. Why be a highbrow? She is so 
easily a leader in the school, and, as she boasts, puts it 
over the teachers in any way she pleases. In the days 
before she became aware of herself it used to be hard to 
get her to brush her teeth. To-day I presume that her 
worthy preceptresses would expel her if she did not use 
the latest dentifrice twice a day. But they are quite 
willing to let her mind become overlaid with foul scum 
for want of systematic brushing up. 

“Dynamite for that institution and all like it! Nothing 
else would serve. With all your luxuriousness, Mona, 
your love of excitement, your carpe diem philosophy of 
life (Pat, who has ‘taken’ Latin, does not know what 
carpe diem signifies), your eagerness for the immediate 
satisfactions of the moment, you never let your brain 


FLAMING YOUTH 


127 


become softened and untrained and fat. The higher in¬ 
terests were just as much a part of the embellishment of 
life to you as were flowers or games, music or friends. 
What inner friends will little Pat have? Not literature. 
Shakespeare she knows because she must; the school 
course requires it. But he is a task, not a delight. 
Thackeray is slow and Dickens a bore. Poetry is a me¬ 
chanical exercise; I doubt whether a single really beau¬ 
tiful line of Shelley or Keats or Coleridge remains in 
her memory, though she can chant R. W. Service and 
Walt Mason. Swinburne she has read on the sly, ab¬ 
sorbing none of the luminousness of his flame; only the 
heat. Similarly, Balzac means to her the ‘Contes Dro- 
latiques,’ also furtively perused. Conrad and Wells are 
vague names; something to save until she is older. But 
O. Henry she dutifully deems a classic and is quite famil¬ 
iar with his tight-rope performances; proud of it, too, 
as evincing an up-to-date erudition. As for ‘the latest 
books of the day,’ she is keen on them, particularly if 
they happen to be some such lewd and false achievement 
as the intolerable ‘Arab.’ Any book spoken of under 
the breath has for her the stimulus of a race; she must 
absorb it first and look knowing and demure when it is 
mentioned. The age of sex, Mona. . . . Her standards 
of casual reading are of like degree; she considers Town 
Topics an important chronicle and Vanity Fair a sympo¬ 
sium of pure intellect. 

“Yet she has been taking a course in Literature at the 
school! 

“Science has no thrill for Pat; therefore she ignores 
it. Futile little courses in ‘How to Know’ things like 
flowers and birds and mushrooms have gone no deeper 
than the skin. No love of nature has been inculcated by 
them. She hardly knows the names of the great scien- 


128 


FLAMING YOUTH 


tists. Einstein she recognises through having seen his 

travels chronicled and heard vaudeville jokes about him. 

But mention Pasteur or Metchnikoff and vou would leave 

•/ 

her groping; and she doubtless would identify Lister as 
one who achieved fame by inventing a mouth wash. How¬ 
ever, she could at once tell you the name of the fashionable 
physician to go to for nervous breakdown. 

“Her economics are as vague as her science. Politics 
are a blank. But to be found ignorant of the most recent 
trend of the movies or the names of their heroes, or not 
to know the latest gag of some unspeakable vulgarian 
of the revues—that would overwhelm her with shame. 
Her speech and thought are largely a reflection of the 
contemporary stage. Not the stage of Shaw and O’Neill, 
but of bedroom farce and trite musical comedy. Thus far 
she compares unfavourably in education with the average 
shop girl. 

“In music and art the reckoning is better. But this 
again is largely inherited. If the sap-headed sisterhood 
have not fostered, they at least have not tainted her sound 
instincts in these directions. She has followed her own 
bent. 

“As it is a professedly denominational school she has, 
of course, specialised or been specialised upon as a church- 
woman. A very sound and correct churchwoman, but 
not much of a Godwoman. No philosophy and very 
little ethics are to be found in her religion. Worship is 
for her a bargain of which the other consideration is 
prayer. She gives to God certain praises and observ¬ 
ances and asks in return special favours. 6 I’ll do this 
for you, God, and you do as much for me some day.* 
Her expectancy of assured returns she regards as a 
praiseworthy and pious quality known as faith. Blas¬ 
phemy, of course. Not the poor child’s. The sin, which 


FLAMING YOUTH 


129 


is a sin of ignorance and loose thinking, is upon the sanc¬ 
tified sisterhood. They have classified the Deity for Pat: 
God as a social arbiter. 

“The sisterhood are purists. Naturally. But purists 
only by negation. All the essential facts they dodge. 
True, there is a course in hygiene. It is conducted by 
a desiccated virgin who minces about the simple- and 
noble facts of sex life as if she were afraid of getting her 
feet wet, and whose soul would shrivel within her could 
she overhear the casual conversation of the girls whom 
she purports to instruct. All that side of knowledge and 
conjecture they absorb from outside contacts. A worse 
medium would be hard to conceive. From what Pat indi¬ 
cates of the tittle-tattle of ingenues’ luncheons, it would 
enlighten Rabelais and shock Pepys! And the current 
jokes between the girls and their boy associates of college 
age are chiefly innuendo and double entente based on 
sex. Pat cannot say ‘bed’ or ‘leg’ or ‘skin’ without an 
expectant self-consciousness. Some reechy sort of bed¬ 
room story has been lately going the rounds, the point 
of which is involved in the words ‘nudge’ and ‘phone.’ 
Every time either word is used in Pat’s set, there are 
knowing looks and sniggers, and some nimble wit makes 
a quick turn of the context and gets his reward in more 
or less furtive laughter. It is not so much the moral 
side, it is the nauseous bad taste that sickens one. The 
mind decays in that atmosphere. Once Pat said to me: 
‘Bobs, you and Mr. Scott are the only clean-minded men 
I know.’ Think of what that means, Mona! The vicious¬ 
ness of such an environment. Yet the youngsters them¬ 
selves are not essentially vicious; not many of them. 
They are curious with the itchy curiosity of their ex¬ 
plorative time of life, and they have no proper guidance. 
The girls are worse off than the boys who do gain some 


130 


FLAMING YOUTH 


standards in college. But our finishing schools, churchly 
or otherwise! Hell is paved with their good intentions. 
Pat’s is not worse than the others, I suppose. But the 
pity of it; the waste of it for her. Hers is such a vivid 
mind; such a brave, straightfprward little mind; at war 
with that hungry, passionate temperament of hers, yet 
instinctively clean if it could be protected from befoul- 
ment. I have been talking biology with her and she 
absorbs it with such swift, sure appreciation. The day 
of trial for her will come when the lighter amusements 
pall and her brain demands something to feed on—unless 
before that time it becomes totally encysted. 

“Cary Scott’s influence on her is good. She likes and 
respects him and is a little afraid of him, too. He has 
a quality of quiet contempt for cheap and shoddy things 
to which she responds, though not always without bursts 
of her fiery little temper. If he were less of the natural 
aristocrat in all the outer attributes he would not impress 
her so. Meantime I am glad to see him take some inter¬ 
est even though it be but a playfully intellectual one, in 
anyone who will divert his mind from Constance. Some¬ 
times I have thought disaster imminent in that quarter. 
Disaster! How readily one falls into the moralist’s 
speech, and how your dear lips would quirk at that tone 
from me, dearest. Yet a liaison between those two would 
be potentially disastrous. For Connie has nothing to 
give to a man like Cary Scott except her beauty. If he 
is the man I think him, he will never take her for that 
alone; or, if he does, be long satisfied with it. Yet her 
charm is terribly strong. ... I wonder whether you 
really loved Cary Scott, Mona, as I have loved and still 
love you. . . .” 

Coming downstairs after writing this letter, from the 
dead woman’s room where a desk had been set aside for 


IfJLAMING YOUTH 


181 


him as executor of her estate, Osterhout found Cary 
Scott, dressed in evening clothes, waiting in the library. 
On his return from his trip abroad Scott had unobtru¬ 
sively resumed his established place at Holiday Knoll. 
He had seen as much of Constance as before, perhaps 
more, because Dee, between whom and Scott a very frank 
and easy friendship had grown up, was occupied with 
Jameson James to the partial exclusion of other asso¬ 
ciations, and therefore Scott was less with her than 
formerly. He did not like James. 

Scott and the doctor greeted each other cordially. 

“You have a festive air to-night,” remarked Osterhout. 

“Yes. It’s the special symphony concert this evening. 
I’m taking Constance.” 

“No, you’re not,” contradicted a hoarse and gay voice. 
Pat smiled upon them from the entrance. 

The two men turned to look at her. She stood, one 
hand above the tousled shimmer of her short, dark hair, 
lightly holding by the lintel. In her eyes were laughter, 
anticipation, and a plea. Her strong, young figure pre¬ 
serving still much of the adorable awkwardness of unde¬ 
veloped youth, had fallen into a posture of stilled ex¬ 
pectancy. She wore a sweater of some exotic, metallic 
blue, a short, barred skirt, and woollen stockings, dis¬ 
playing the firm, rounded legs. 

“You’re taking me, Aren’t you?” she added in the 
husky, breaking sweetness of her voice. 

Into the minds of the two men darted diverse responses 
to the appeal of the interrupter. Cary Scott thought, 
“What a child it is!” Wiser and more cognisant, 
through experience of the years, Robert Osterhout said 
within himself, “Good Lord! It’s a woman.” 

“Why the charming substitution?” inquired Scott in 


132 


FLAMING YOUTH 


the manner which, to her unfailing delight, He used toward 
Pat as toward any of his older associates. 

“Con’s got a headache.” 

Cary Scott understood perfectly. This was subterfuge 
on Constance’s part. She was unready to face the issue. 
There had been a preamble between them on the previous 
evening; tacitly it was understood that this evening was 
to determine their future relations. And now she Was 
shirking the crisis. Or was she merely playing the part 
of the “teaser,” drawing back the more to inflame his 
ardour—and perhaps her own? Of the two hypotheses 
Scott inclined to the former. It was more in consonance 
with her natural inertia of character. If she were in 
love with him it was not the kind of love which justified 
itself by daring, by taking the risks, by boldly facing 
sacrifice. Inexplicably he felt a quality of relief mingling 
with his natural pique. He was well satisfied to post¬ 
pone, to let the decision go, to find relaxation in taking 
Pat to the concert. In the companionship of this eager, 
acute, vivid child he would breathe a clearer atmosphere, 
with something of a mental stimulus, a tingle in it, that 
which he most missed in his association with the married 
sister. All of this rapid cogitation was quite without 
reflected effect upon his imperturbable manner as he said: 

“Tell Constance that I’m so sorry, won’t you? And 
that I appreciate her sending so delightful a substitute.” 

“Oh, she didn’t send me,” answered Pat composedly. 
“It’s all my own idea.” 

“A very good one,” grunted Osterhout. “Pat’s a con¬ 
noisseur of music. But don’t keep my infant out too 
late, Scott.” 

“All right, Pop,” returned Scott with mocking defer¬ 
ence, as the older man left. 

“How long can you wait ?” demanded Pat of her escort. 


FLAMING YOUTH 133 

“I can’t wait at all. My car is champing at the leash 
now.” 

Pat’s illumined face fell. “But I can’t go this way.” 

“Why not? I like you that way.” 

“But you’re always so awfully correct. I look like a 
mess.” 

“You look like”—he searched for and found the pic¬ 
ture—“like a mediaeval page.” 

She made a grimace. “Yes. A boy.” In frank 
unconsciousness she set her hands with spread fingers 
against her breasts. “Flat, like a board,” she said dis¬ 
consolately. 

“I like it,” he reassured her. “It’s part of the 
charm.” 

She gave her characteristic soft crow of pleasure. 
“That's the nicest thing you could possibly say to me. 
D’you mean it? Really?” 

“Of course I mean it. Why not?” 

“I thought men liked girls to be just the other way. 
All rounded.” She peered at him doubtfully. “Per¬ 
haps it’s because you’re old,” she surmised. 

Taken aback for the moment he interpreted the inno¬ 
cent speech too literally. “I’m not as old as that. 
Though I don’t suppose—I rather wonder what you 
meant by that.” 

“Oh, nothing! Just that the point of view must be 
different. Isn’t it? Less personal.” 

“It’s very personal in this case,” he retorted with a 
real warmth of friendliness for this strange and appealing 
child, “and quite simple. You’re a very delightful little 
Pat. I like your type. Petite gamine .” 

“What’s that?” 

“Isn’t French taught in your school?” 

“It’s taught; but it isn’t necessarily learned,” she an- 



134 


FLAMING YOUTH 


swered, summing up in that flash of criticism the essential 
falsity of the whole finishing school system, 

“I see. You know what a gamin is?” 

“Gamin?” She gave it the English pronunciation. 
“Oh, yes.” 

“Gamine is the feminine. But there’s a suggestion in 
it of something more delicate and fetching; of verve, of 
—of diablerie. As there is in you. It’s hard to say in 
English. I could describe you better in French.” 

“Could you? Then I’ll learn French. And I think 
it’s divine of you,” said she, employing her favourite ad¬ 
jective, “to like my funny, flat figure. You know,” she 
added, sparkling at him mischievously, “you’re taking a 
chance on this concert thing.” 

“Any special chance other than that of being late?” 

“Oh, I shan’t be a minute, now that I needn’t dress. 
Yes; you’re taking a big chance. I’m an awful nut over 
music. It does all kinds of things to me. I’m quite 
capable of falling on your neck and bursting into sobs 
if they play anything I awfully like.” 

Beneath the lightness he sensed a real emotion. “Are 
you really so fond of it? Then I’m doubly glad that 
you’re going.” 

“I adore it. Really good music, I mean. Oh, I do 
wish I could play or sing or do something worth while.” 

“Have you ever tried?” 

She shrugged her shoulders. “Too lazy. If it wasn’t 
for the boring practice I might do something.” She 
raised her voice and sang the opening bars of the Hindu 
Sleep-Song. 

“The devil!” exclaimed Cary Scott. 

All the huskiness had passed from the voice, which 
issued from the full throat, pure, fresh-toned, deep and 
effortless. 


FLAMING YOUTH 


135 


“You ought t5 be ashamed of yourself,” he declared 
so vehemently that she pouted. 

“Now you’re scolding me.” 

“Because you’re letting a voice like that go untrained.” 

‘Tots of people like it as it is,” she said resentfully. 

“Then they don’t recognise what a really lovely thing 
it might be, properly handled. Why haven’t you taken 
lessons ?” 

Again the shrug. “I did. But I stopped. Too much 
trouble. Will vou teach me?” 

“I? Heavens, no! You want a professional.” 

“What! and practice an hour every day?” cried the 
horrified Pat. 

“Two hours. Three probably. It would be worth it.” 

“I’d be bored to a frazz.” 

“You’re bored with anything that means work, disci¬ 
pline, self-restraint. Aren’t you, Pat?” 

“Are you going to lecture me again? I love it,” she 
observed unexpectedly and with a brilliant smile. 

In spite of himself he laughed. “No. I’m going to 
take you to the concert. Get your hat.” 

Settling herself in the car like a contented kitten, Pat 
presently said: “There’s something I want to tell you, 
Mr. Scott. Only it isn’t too easy to begin.” 

“Why not? We’re friends, aren’t we?” 

“Right! That makes it easier. You remember at the 
club; what we talked about?” 

“Yes.” 

“I’ve been awfully good—about that. I haven’t, at 
all. At least, nothing serious.” 

“I am flattered to have been so good an influence,” he 
remarked with his faintlv ironic inflection. Constance 
would not have caught it. But little Pat’s ear was truer. 

“Don’t josh me about it,” she protested. “Nobody’s 


136 FLAMING YOUTH 

ever tried to be a good influence for me really. Except 
Bobs. And he doesn’t know.” 

“Why doesn’t he know?” 

“Too old. But,” she added in afterthought, “you’re 
old, too, aren’t you!” 

“Terribly.” 

“I’d almost forgotten that,” she said thoughtfully. 


/ 


\ 

CHAPTER XIII 

Coming otit of the concert hall after the last, culmi¬ 
nating burst of harmony, Cary Scott drew a deep breath 
of the night air. Lover and connoisseur of music though 
he had always been, never in his recollection had it so 
penetrated his being as now. Better programmes he had 
listened to, more perfectly rendered. But the compan¬ 
ionship of the intensely responsive young girl, her superb 
and poignant vitality concentrated upon the great waves 
of sensation which had swept over their spirits, inter¬ 
preted the numbers for him in a new measure. Timidly, 
tentatively at first, then more boldly as the ardent influ¬ 
ences took hold upon her, Pat had yearned to him in the 
semi-darkness which surrounded them. The sweet, firm 
curve of her shoulder first, then the close pressure of her 
knee; soon her fingers, creeping to his hand, clasping and 
being enfolded, the fragrance of her light, quick breath, 
rhythmic upon his cheek. It seemed as if she had become 
subtly the medium and instrument of all the splendour of 
sound, as if the music were flowing in the currents of her 
woman’s body out upon him and around him in a sub¬ 
merging flood. 

Now they were in the open air. She walked beside him, 
her face dreamy and demure, the faintest of smiles implicit 
in the up-slanted corners of her mouth. 

“Wasn’t it—magic!” she breathed. 

“Yes, magic,” he assented. 

They located and entered his car. For a time the in¬ 
tricacies of the traffic engrossed his attention. As they 
passed into the light-shot spaciousness of the park he 
turned to her. 


137 


188 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Well?” 

“Don’t let’s talk. I want to just remember.** 

He nodded and she leaned to him momentarily again, 
kitten-like, caressing, grateful for his understanding. 
He, too, was glad of the respite, for, man of the world 
though he was, he had been strangely, unexpectedly 
shaken. It was Pat who, long minutes later, sighed and 
broke the silence with the hoarse, enticing sweetness of 
her tones. 

“What did you do it for, Mr. Scott?” 

“I? Do what?” He was surprised by the directness 
of the attack. 

“Oh, well! I, then. You know. What did you let 
me do it for?” 

He made no reply. In his stillness was a sense of ex¬ 
pectancy to which she responded. 

“I warned you what music did to me. But you—you 

needn’t have let me-” She paused. “Do you like me 

a little?” she murmured. 

“Yes. A little.” 

“Only a little?” she teased, half child demanding the 
comfort of affection, half conscious coquette. “Not more 
than that?” 

“Perhaps a little more,” he smiled. 

“But not half as much as you do Con,” she said delib¬ 
erately. 

He was silent, his attention apparently engrossed in 
a heavy truck which gave them bare passing room. 

“Do you?” she insisted, daring greatly. 

“Do I what?” 

“Like me as much as you do Con? Half as much, I 
mean.” 

“If I did do you think I should tell you?” 



FLAMING YOUTH 


139 


“Why shouldn’t you? But I thought you were crazy 
over Con. She thinks so.” 

Scott hummed one of the passages from the final num¬ 
ber of the concert. 

“Oh, very well. I’m only making conversation. I 
don’t really want to talk at all. I’d rather think. All 
the rest of the way home.” 

Arrived at Holiday Knoll, he stepped from the car and 
held out a hand to her. “Good-night, Pat.” 

“Aren’t you coming in?” 

“I think not.” 

“Ah, do,” she wheeedled. “Just for a minute.” 

He turned to look at the broad, rambling house. A 
(dim light burned in the library; a brighter one in Dee’s 
room overhead. Constance’s room was dark. He was 
vaguely glad of that. 

“I haven’t even thanked you yet,” she observed. 

“You needn’t.” 

“Then you ought to thank me,” she asserted daringly, 
“for taking Connie’s place. Do come in. Perhaps I can 
find you a drink.” 

“I don’t want a drink, thank you,” he returned; but 
he followed her through the door. 

“It’ s us. Dee,” called the girl, projecting her voice up 
the stairway as she led the way to the library. “Mr. Scott 
and me.” 

“All right,” Dee responded. “I’m in my nightie or I'd 
come down. Have a good time?” 

“Gee-lorious!” said Pat. She took off her hat, fluffed 
up her short, heavy hair with a double-handed scuffle 
characteristic of her, and moved forward to the tkble. 

In the diffused soft radiance of the one light, Scott 
stared at her. Her pose was languid, her eyes sombre 


140 


FLAMING YOUTH 


with the still passion of lovely sounds remembered. Slowly 
the lids drooped over them. She tilted her chin and in 
her effortless, liquid voice of song gave out the exquisite 
rhythm of a melody from the Tschaikowsky Fifth which 
they had just heard. 

“Don’t, Pat,” muttered Scott. 

“Don’t j^ou like it?” 

“I love it. So—don’t.” 

She moved toward him, her throat still quivering with 
the beauty of sound, and lifted her hand to the bright, 
curt waves of hair at his temple, brushing them lightly 
back. A dusky colour glowed in her cheeks. As the dim 
echo of the music died, she leaned to him. Her lips, light, 
fervent, cool, softly firm, met his, lingered upon them for 
the smallest, sweetest moment as a moth hovers in its 
flight from a flower. Then she, too, was in flight. 

“Good-night,” she whispered back to him from the 
doorway. 

Pat’s challenge to Stancia’s supremacy gave Scott 
plenty to speculate about. His first sentiment was amuse¬ 
ment that this daring child should have deliberately elected 
to enter the lists against her older and more beautiful 
sister. But what was Pat’s interest in him? Flirtation? 
Evidently. He guessed that it was the dash ^x diablerie 
in her that had inspired the experiment. Nevertheless, he 
was conscious of a rather excited interest in and curiosity 
about her, not as a precocious child, but as a reckonable 
woman with distinct provocations of person and mind. 
In comparison with her, Scott reflected (and was shocked 
at his own disloyalty in so reflecting) Stancia was becom¬ 
ing insipid. 

He discovered, in thinking it over, that there had grown 
up an impalpable embarrassment between Stancia and 
himself, and that it seemed to have been growing for some 


FLAMING YOUTH 


141 


time; an inexplicable thing between those two who had 
approached so near to embarkation upon the love- 
adventure perilous. Had she noticed it? He wondered. 
Had he been so bold as to put the query to her, she would 
have hardly known how to reply. She was conscious that 
at times she failed to hold his interest; that his mind 
seemed to wander away from her; but, in the self-sufficiency 
of her beauty, she set that down to a quality of vagueness 
in his character. He was unfailingly gentle, considerate, 
and helpful wherever, in her luxurious and hard-pressed 
life, she allowed him to help. And he asked nothing in 
return. 

This piqued, even while it relieved her. For she was no 
longer adventurous. The layers of fat were insulating 
that soft and comfort-enslaved soul. Scott, striving to 
maintain the appearances of a loyalty which he did not 
really owe (how he thanked his gods for that now!) found 
her loveliness growing monotonous, her inertia of mind, 
irritant. “Nothing above the ears,” Pat had said ; wicked 
little Pat, whose vividness so far outshone the mere beauty 
of the elder. The harsh truth of the slang had stuck. 

His next encounter with the girl was several days later 
when he was keeping an appointment with Stancia in the 
library at the Knoll; the merest fleeting glimpse of the 
boyish girl-figure as it passed through the hallway, 
followed by the heart-troubling, deep thrill of her voice 
raised in the Tschaikowsky melody. . . . “I’ve asked you 
twice,” he was conscious of Stancia saying plaintively, 
“and you don’t pay any attention.” 

“I really beg your pardon,” apologised Scott. “Awfully 
stupid of me. Of course, I shall be delighted to stay to 
luncheon.” 

As he was leaving early in the afternoon, Pat hurried 
after him to intercept the car. 


142 FLAMING YOUTH 

“Take me down to the village with you, Mr. Scott?” 

“Indeed I will.” 

She jumped in. “I don’t want to go to the village,” 
said she in quite a different tone, as the car took the 
curve. “I want to talk.” 

“It’s a worthy ambition. So do I. Where shall we go ?” 

“Anywhere.” 

He whirled the car around an abrupt corner and 
headed for the open country. 

“I cried that night after the concert,” Pat informed 
him. She was staring straight in front of her. 

“My dear!” he murmured. 

“I’m not your dear.” 

“No. You’re not. I must remember that.” 

“Not a bit—to-day. I’ve had time to think.” 

“So have I.” 

She whirled on him. “Have you changed, too?” she 
demanded with animation and dismay, quaintly negligent 
of the implied inconsistency. 

“No. I haven’t changed.” 

“I’m glad,” said she naively. Then, stealing a glance at 
him, “Do you still like me—a little?” 

A little? How much did he “like” this bewitching child? 
Was “like” a sufficient word at all for the feeling which 
had taken such puzzling growth within him? He could 
not have answered the query to himself satisfactorily, and 
had no intention of defining his attitude for her benefit. 

“Tell me,” she whispered. “I think you might.”, 

“I have many things to tell you, little Pat,” he replied 
with his foreign precision of speech; “but that is not one 
of them.” 

“It’s the one I want to hear,” said willful Pat. 

“First, do you tell me: why did you cry that night?” 

“Conscience. No,” she contradicted herself thought- 



FLAMING YOUTH 148 

fully; “that’s a bluff. I don’t know. Sort of nervousness, 
I expect.” 

“That is what I feared for you; that you would brood 
over it and make yourself unhappy-” 

“It wasn’t that at all,” interrupted Pat simply and 
promptly. “But I did want to see you again and know 
that you didn’t think—that I wasn’t too awfully—that 
I didn’t seem just a fresh kid to you.” 

“No. You didn’t.” 

“Was that being ‘petite gamine ’?” She threw a side¬ 
long glance at him. 

“Was it? You should know.” 

“After all, it was only a white kiss.” 

“A what?” 

“White kiss. There are white kisses and red kisses,” 
she explained unconcernedly. 

“You have no right to that kind of knowledge,” said 
he sternly. “Where did you come by it?” 

“I told you,” she muttered gloomily, “that I used to 
be a terrible necker.” 

“Yes. But-—that sort of thing! Don’t you know that’s 
dangerous ?” 

“Would it be with you?” she asked with direct and naive 
curiosity. 

“There is no question of it with me,” he answered 
rigidly. “But, so far as that goes, no. I am old enough 
to know how to control myself.” 

“Then you’re different from most men,” she returned 
bitterly. 

“Good God, child! Have you learned that already? 
At your age?” 

“Since we’re telling each other our real names,” said 
Pat in her levelest tones, “the first time I was kissed I 
was hardly fifteen.” 



144 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“You seem to have been unfortunately precocious.” 

She flashed a smile at him. “Are you jealous?” 

The amazing realisation came to him that he was. 
But he answered steadily: “What right should I have to 
be jealous of what you might do?” 

“Suppose I want you to be?” 

This he chose to disregard. “I don’t believe that you 
understand yourself, your temperament.” He was trying 
to hold himself to a tone of cool diagnosis. “I wish I were 
your Dr. Bobs for fifteen minutes.” 

“Well, I don’t,” she retorted. “Bobs’s middle names 
are Sterling Worth; but I’d rather have you lecture me. 
You understand.” 

“I understand that you are of a very high-strung, 
neurotic, excitable temperament.” 

Gloom overshadowed her face again. “You’re not 
telling me any news about myself.” 

“Then you must see how perilous it is for a girl like 
you to be what you call a necker.” 

“Oh, as far as that goes,” she answered coolly, “I’ve 
always got my foot on the brake. Every minute. If 
things get too hectic I can always see the ridiculous side* 
of it and get up a laugh. It’s a grand little safeguard, 
being able to laugh at yourself.” 

“I suppose it is. As long as you are able.” 

“Anyway, I’ve been terribly proper ever since you talked 
to me that night at the party. Wise virgin stuff! Do 
you know you’ve got a lot of influence over me, Mr. 
Scott?” 

“Have I? I’m glad of that.” 

“So am I. But I don’t quite know why you should 
have.” She pondered. “Unless it’s because there’s some¬ 
thing about you that makes the other men seem clumsy 
and—and local” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


145 


He laughed. “I’m very flattered.” 

“Don’t make fun of me,” pouted Pat. “I’m serious. 
Particularly about your having influence over me. Since 
our talk I’ve passed up all sorts of chances to have a 
flutter. I don’t believe I’ve kissed three boys, in all.” 

Despite himself Scott queried acidly: “And were they 
red or white kisses?” 

“Well, one of them might have had a dash of pink in it. 
No; I just said that to tease you,” she added impulsively. 
“I really have been boringly good. It isn’t too easy, 
either.” 

“Pat, why don’t you talk to Dr. Bobs about yourself?” 

“I will if you want me to,” said she submissively. 

“It would be a good thing, assuming that you would 
talk frankly.” 

“Where shall I begin? By telling him about us?” she 
inquired demurely. 

Upon this Scott’s inner commentary was, “You little 
devil!” Aloud he said composedly: “If you think it 
significant. But what I said was about yourself.” 

“Oh, I’m well enough,” said she carelessly. 

“Are you happy enough?” 

She gave him a startled glance. “Why should you think 
I’m not happy?” 

“I didn’t say I thought so. I simply asked you.” 

“Well, I am.” But there was a hint of defiance in hex* 
tone. “And you do think I’m not.” 

“I think you’re restless and discontented.” 

“What makes you think that?” she asked, curiously, 
leaning over to him so that the warm curve of her arm 
pressed his. 

He glanced not at her but at her encroaching shoulder. 
“Because of just that sort of tiling.” 

She snatched her arm away. “I hate you!” 


146 FLAMING YOUTH 

“Better hate me than yourself. As you did that night 
at the club.” 

Tears welled up in her eyes. Her chin trembled and 
there was a soft, heart-thrilling catch in the huskiness of 
her voice, barely controlled enough to enunciate: “I don’t 
see why you’re so mean to me.” 

“Why, it’s a child!” he exclaimed in mock self-reproach. 
“And I keep forgetting and treating it like a grown-up.” 

“That’s why I love to be with you. I want to be treated 
that way.” 

“Oh, no! You merely think you do. In reality you 
want to be petted and flattered and coddled and approved 
in all your cunning and silly little ways. That would be 
very easy. Only—it isn’t part of our compact.” 

With one of her mercurial changes she flashed a smile 
at him. “I’d nearly forgotten. You were to be my wise 
and guiding friend, weren’t you? Is that why you’re 
telling me that I’m restless and discontented?” 

“Well, aren’t you?” 

“Not more than the other girls.” 

“Is that an answer?” 

“No. Yes, it is, too! Why should I be different?” 

“Because you’re you.” 

“ ‘B e-cause you’re you, 9 99 she sang gaily to the measure 
of an elderly but still popular song. “I like to have you 
say that. How do you think I’m different?” 

“Ah, that I can’t say. You see, I don’t know the girls 
of your age much.” 

“No; you’re always playing around with the married 
women,” she remarked calmly. “Well, you don’t miss 
much. They’re a lot of dimwits, the girls of my age here. 
No snap. If they can get a couple of rounds of bridge in 
the afternoon and a cocktail before dinner and a speed- 
limit whizz around the country in somebody’s car, or a 


FLAMING YOUTH 


147 


few hours of jazz, or a snuggling party with some good- 
looking boy on the porch, that’ll keep them from suicide 
for quite a spell.” 

“I see. They seek the same distractions from the 
prevailing restlessness-” 

“You needn’t finish,” she broke in. “Yes; we’re all 
alike. There isn’t a girl that doesn’t go in for spooning 
if she likes the boy—and a lot of ’em aren’t even too 
particular about that—except maybe the Standish girls, 
and they’ve been brought up as if their house was a 
convent. At that, Ailsa Standish told me the conundrum 
about why girls wear their hair covering their ears. D’you 
know it?” she enquired with a palpable effect of brazen 
hardihood. But she turned her head away from the quiet 
disgust of his look as he answered: 

“Yes, I know it. But you’ve no business to. It strikes 
me that you’re in a pretty rotten set.” 

“It’s the only set in Dorrisdale,” defended Pat sullenly. 
“And we’re slow compared to some of the other towns.” 

“Well, if you think it’s worth it,” he began slowly when 
she cut in, with a sort of cr}^, throwing out her hands, 
those large, supple, shapely? capable hands, in a gesture 
of despair and appeal. “But what’s a girl to do?” 

“Doesn’t your school give you anything?” 

“Not a dam’ thing that I don’t want to get and get 
easy. All they try to do is make it easy for you to get 
through. They won’t even issue diplomas ior fear some 
of the girls couldn’t pass the exams and their people would 
get sore on the school. I study when I feel like it, and that 
isn’t too often.” 

4 ‘Will you do something for me, Pat?” 

“Yes; I’d love to,” was the eager reply. 

“Make something of your voice. You can do it with a 

little work.” 




148 


FLAMING YOUTH 


At the last word she assumed an expression of distrust. 
“How much work?” 

“Two hours a day, perhaps.” 

“Two hours a day! For how long?” 

“A year of it would give you a start.” 

“Two whole hours out of every .day for a year? What 
do you take me for; a machine?” Scott’s nerves quivered 
with the strident rasp of the voice, like the squawk of a 
dismayed and indignant hen. “Why, I wouldn’t have any 
time for anything else.” 

“Some days have as much as twenty-four hours in 
them,” he pointed out. “However, you might make a 
start with an hour.” 

“I might,” she admitted dubiously, “while I’m in school. 
But when I get out I want to have some fun. And I’m 
going to.” 

“So, it seems this influence which I am supposed to have 
over you doesn’t go very far.” 

“Now you’re disgusted with me again. But I can’t help 
it. I’m not going to be a slave just to be able to sing a 
little.” 

“It might be more than a little. And it seems to be the 
one quality you have which might be susceptible of 
development.” 

“Now you’re talking like a school teacher. And you’re 
not too flattering, are you? Don’t you think I’ve got any 
brains ?” 

“Yes. But I don’t think you’re going to find them of 
much use.” 

“I suppose you’d like me to go to college,” said Pat 
contemptuously, “and learn the college cheer and how 
to play basketball.” 

“You might even learn more than that. However, if 


FLAMING YOUTH 


149 


you’re satisfied with your present status, that settles that . 
Suppose we talk of something else.” 

This did not suit Pat at all. She promptly said so. 
“I want to talk about me. You almost always do talk to 
me about myself. I wonder if that’s why I like to be 
with you more than anyone else,” she concluded with one 
of her accesses of insight. 

“It’s an extremely interesting subject.” 

“Now you’re laughing at me again. And a moment ago 
you were angry. But you’re still disappointed, aren’t 
you ?” 

“A little.” 

“I think that’s rotten of you!” she murmured. “I 
suppose we ought to be going back.” She sighed. “I don’t 
want to a bit. Can you turn here?” 

It was a narrow and tricky road. As the car came to 
a stop after backing she laid her hand on his. “Kiss little 
Pattie and tell her to be a good child and she’ll be awfully 
good,” she murmured elfishly. 

Scott completed the turn before he answered: “No, 
little Pat. No more of that between you and me.” 

On the return journey she was silent and thoughtful. 
At the post office in the village she asked to be set down, 
and, getting out, looked up at him, her eyes limpid with 
sincerity. 

“Please, Mr. Scott, keep on liking me,” she said. “It’s 
awfully good for me,” 



CHAPTER XIV 


Semiciucles of weariness hollowed Robert Osterhout’s 
eyes as he opened the door and entered Mona’s room. It 
had been a hard night for him. Memory had been deli¬ 
cately dissecting his nerves. Striving in vain to lose 
himself in his experiments he had turned, early in the 
morning, to his communion with the dead woman. The 
letter, that pitiful solace for the unremitting pain of loss 
and loneliness, was in his hand now as he closed the door 
behind him. 

“ ... As for Pat,” he had written, “she is one of those 
born to trouble the hearts of men and to take fire from 
their trouble. Of the tribe of Helen! If I could see her 

safely married- Safely! As if there were any safety in 

marriage! Not under our present system. Look at 
Connie. Though, for that matter, my misgivings about 
her and Car} r Scott seem to have been misplaced. That 
flame has flickered out. She will perhaps settle down from 
sheer inertia. But hers is hardly what one would call a 
safe or successful marriage. Dee’s may be better. Not 
that she is specially in love with James. But her training 
at sports will stand her in good stead. She will go through 
with it. Dee is first and last a good sport. Nevertheless, 
I sometimes wish she had w T aited for the really right man, 
if there be any such for her. 

“Mona, there are times when I could believe in trial 
marriage, with suitable safeguards, of course, against 
children. If I were a philosopher instead of a medical 
man I should certainly favour the system. But my techni¬ 
cal training prejudices my judgment. Of course, we do 

150 



FLAMING YOUTH 


151 


have trial marriages, and commonly; or trial alliances, 
which is the same thing without the same name. If the 
truth were known I suppose that most men who marry the 
second time, marry their mistresses. How many other 
experiments may previously have gone into the discard as 
having proved unsuitable, is another question. Selection 
of the fittest. The notion that men never marry the 
women who give themselves is fictional cant, one of those 
many falsities which society propagates under the silly 
delusion that they are safeguards of virtue. 

“What an experiment it would be to bring up a young 
girl in an atmosphere clear of all the common lies and 
illusions! You had begun to do it with Pat, I think. I 
wish that I could carry on. But it *is too blind a venture 
for a worn and uncertain bachelor like myself. Neverthe¬ 
less, when Pat does put questions to me I give her the 
truth. And she has a flair for truth. An enquiring and 
pioneering sort of mind, too, which would be a fine 
equipment if only it were trained and disciplined. As it 
is, it is a danger. She will explore, and exploration, with 
her temperament—Pat ought to marry some man much 
older than herself; a man of thirty at least, clever enough 
to understand her, patient enough to bear with her 
caprices, and strong enough to compel her respect. He 
could make something real of her, for there is essential 
character in Pat. Or is it only the charm of her person¬ 
ality that makes one think so? I could wish that Cary 
Scott were not married. Though, of course, he is too 
old for her. He takes a great deal of interest in her and 
has much influence over her mind; but his interest is not 
that kind of interest, naturally. He has been talking to 
me about her; very shrewdly, too. He thinks her of the 
dangerously inflammable type. I fancy that she has been 
making a confidant of him. He thinks that I should talk 


152 


FLAMING YOUTH 


to her plainly. I feel rather alarmed at the prospect; 
the modern flapper knows so formidably much!” 

Opening the safe to add this letter to the accumulating 
pile in the centre compartment, Osterhout was conscious 
of a subtle and troubling impression. He felt that some 
alien hand had intruded there, some alien eye had seen 
those words, so sacredly confidential, sealed in the invio¬ 
lable silences of death. Yet that, he knew, w r as impossible. 
No one in the world except himself had the combination 
of the safe. Could Mona herself, Mona’s spirit, returning 
to the room she had so loved and so permeated with her 
personality, have entered there to absorb the essence of 
the confidences which she had demanded of him? But if 
that were so, why should he feel that sense of invasion, 
since the letters belonged more to Mona than to him? 
Nevertheless, the thought was a blessed appeasement to 
the thirst of his heart. He clasped it to him. But 
presently his underlying materialistic hard sense reas¬ 
serted its ascendancy. He set it all down to imagination; 
smiled tolerantly at himself for a sentimental self-deluder. 

For a long time Pat did not come to pay him the 
expected visit. But the day before her return to school 
she appeared in his laboratory. 

“Bobs,” she announced pathetically, “I’ve got a sore 
throat.” 

“Let’s have a look at it,” he directed, leading her to the 
window. 

She tilted back her face, while he explored the recesses 
of the accused organ. 

“Sore throat, eh?” he remarked. “At least your mouth 
is clean, which is more than could have been said of it a 
year ago. You’ve got a breath like a cow.” 

“ ’Snice,” purred Pat. “I’m a good little dieter. But 
what about my throat?” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


153 


“Well,” answered the physician judicially, “it might be 
diphtheria or it might be scarlet fever, but I think it’s that 
guilty feeling that comes of telling lies about itself. Your 
throat is no more sore than my pipe.” 

“I know it isn’t,” admitted the unabashed Pat. “But 
I’m kind of wrong inside. Way-way inside, I mean.” 

“The patient must be more specific if the physician is to 
be of use.” 

“Bobs, am I a fool?” 

“I suppose so. Most people are.” 

“Am I a dam’ fool?” 

“As to degree we come to a consideration of definition 
which-” 

“Mr. Scott thinks I am.” 

“Hello! Who’s making this diagnosis? Cary Scott, 
or you, or I?” 

“Do you think I ought to go to college?” 

“Too late. You couldn’t get in now, thanks to that 
infernal, mind-coddling, brain-softening school of yours.” 

“It isn’t! I love the school. They let you do whatever 
you like.” 

“Which is, of course, the best possible course for a 
finished product like you.” 

“Oh, well! Who cares? I don’t.” 

“Then why come to me?” 

“I don’t think I’m getting everything cut of—of things 
that I might,” said Pat plaintively. 

“That’s the beginning of wisdom. Why this divine 
discontent? Have the movies begun to pall?” 

“Oh, have you seen Doug Fairbanks in his last? He’s 
too flawless.” 

“Evidently they haven’t begun to pall. If I could be 
assured of its being his last I would gladly go to see the 
too-flawless Doug. But my dull artistic appreciations 



154 


FLAMING YOUTH 


do not rise above Charley Chaplin. But we wander. We 
were discussing your way-way inside, weren’t we? Why 
its sudden discomposure?” 

“I thought you could tell me. You know so much, 
Bobs. I’m getting bored with the things I used to like. 
I think it’s talking with Mr. Scott. He’s so different, and 
he makes the rest seem dull.” 

“Yes; Scott is a bit of a prig,” said Osterhout with 
intention. 

“He isn’t!” flashed Pat indignantly. “He’s the best 
dressed man at the club. Jimmie James says so.” As 
the physician smiled at this naive refutation she added: 
“Well, a man can’t be a prig and look the way Mr. Scott 
always does, can he?” 

“Obviously not.” 

“It’s only because he’s been about the world so much 
and knows such a lot about music and art and books and 
—and things.” 

“Well, you’ve had the advantages of a liberal and lady¬ 
like education yourself. Kindred spirits. Don’t fall in 
love with Cary Scott, Infant. Remember he’s a married 
man,” smiled Osterhout. 

“Fall in love with him? Why, I’d as soon think of 
falling in love with you! He’s old enough to be my 
grandfather! But I think he’s awfully good for me,” 
she added naively. “Don’t you love to talk with Mr. 
Scott, Bobs?” 

“Oh, I just adore it!” simpered the doctor, .clasping 
,fervent hands. 

“Now you’re laughing at me,” she pouted. “He’s always 
laughing at me. That doesn’t help much.” 

“Sometimes it does, Bambina. It might even teach you 
to laugh at yourself.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 155 

“I do that, too. And sometimes I cry at myself. All 
night.” 

“Do you ?” He scrutinised her. “At your age ? What 
do you cry about?” 

“Just about myself. Because nothing seems worth 
while except—except queer things.” 

“That’s morbid. Or else it’s a pose.” 

“It isn’t a pose. I even don’t like school as much as I 
did. Bobs, I want to leave after this term. D’you think 
if you went to Dad you could talk him into letting me?” 

“Much more likely that you could. What’s your plan? 
Launch yourself socially on a waiting world?” 

“Don’t be spit-catty; it doesn’t suit you. No; I want 
to come back home and run the house for Dad and have 
some fun. I’ve been taking domestic science, and I 
know I could do it better than Con. She’d be glad to be 
rid of the bother, anyway. I thought I’d work at music, 
too. Do you think I could do anything with my voice, 
Bobs?” 

“Don’t ask me. Any crow knows more music than I 
do. I think it would be good for you to tackle anything 
steady and regular. It would keep you from being too 
introspective.” 

“Nice Bobs, to give me all the big words for nothing! 
That means that I think too much about myself, doesn’t 
it? I know I do. And I talk too much about myself, 
too. I came over here just to talk about myself and to 
get you to talk about me,” she confessed simply. With an 
air of considered maturity, she added: “It isn’t much 
fun for me to talk to boys of my own age. They’re 
always wanting to tell you about themselves, or else to 
make love to you. Generally it’s love-stuff.” 

“Indeed! Do you go in much for that particular indoor 

sport, Pat?” 


156 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Oh, it isn’t all indoors. There’s porch swings, and 
limousines; all that helps. Are you shocked, Bobs?” 

“I’m interested. The habits of the young of the species 
are bound to be interesting to a scientist.” 

“You said something when you said ‘habits.’ Everybody 
does it. Didn’t you when you were young?” 

“It’s so long ago that I’ve forgotten. But I don’t think 
my sisters did. Not promiscuously.” 

“If they did you’d be the last one that knew about it,” 
the sapient Pat informed him. “And I hate the word 
‘promiscuously.’ Besides, it isn’t true. I don’t. Not 
any more.” 

“Great grief, Infant! You talk as if you’d been at this 
sort of thing for uncounted years!” 

“I’ve been over twelve for some time, you know,” she 
observed lightly. 

“Perhaps it’s as well that you reminded me. You seem 
so permanently young to me. However, speaking medi¬ 
cally, I should say cut it out, Infant. Cut it out for good. 
It’s no good for you. It’s no good for any young girl; 
but particularly not for you.” 

She knitted her pretty brows at him, thinking it 
through. “I get you, Stephen,” she said presently. 
“Though I’m not so different from other girls, only a little 
more so than some, maybe. But you’re right. Sometimes 
I’ve felt like a nervous wreck. I wish that I didn’t know 
so much about myself. Or else that I knew a little more.” 

“You know quite enough. At any rate you spend quite 
enough time thinking about yourself. Where do you 
suppose all this leads to, Pat?” 

“I don’t know. Lots of time to think about that, isn’t 
there? I suppose I’ll get married and have a lot of 
kids some day. I like kids.” 

“It would probably be the best thing for you.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


157 


“Do you think so? But I’d be a rotten wife, Bobs,” 
she added, a cloud settling down upon her expressive face. 
“What kind of a training have I had to marry and have 
children to bring up?” 

“About the same as most of your set, haven’t you?” 

“Yes; and look at them! There isn’t one of them 
that’s true to her husband.” 

“Great Lord, Pat-” 

“Now, I have shocked you.” 

“Yes, you have. Not the fact—though it isn’t a fact 
so sweepingly—but that you at your age should know 
it or think it.” 

“Oh, I don’t mean necessarily that they go the limit. 
But they’re all out for a flutter with any attractive suitor 
that comes along. Bobs, tell me something; if a married 
woman goes necking around isn’t she more likely to—to 
go farther than a girl is?” 

“Depends on the individual. It isn’t the safest of pas¬ 
times for anyone, as I’ve suggested to you.” 

“But it’s such fun to make ’em crazy,” returned the 
irrepressible Pat. “Only,” she added pensively, “it isn’t 
such fun when you feel kind of crazy yourself. Yet it is, 
too. When I get married I’m going to everlastingly settle 
down and never look sideways at any other man. Bobs, 
what makes you think I ought to marry a man thirty 
years old?” 

“It’s about the right age for you. It will take a man 
of some wisdom and self-control to manage you, little 
Pat.” 

“More grandfather stuff!” she muttered fretfully. “I 
don’t want to marry a settled old thing. I want someone 
with some fun left in him.” 

“Two or three years from now thirty won’t look so 
senile.” 



158 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Probably not. Dee’s marrying a man over thirty. 
Bobs, do you like Dee’s engagement?” 

“No; I don’t,” he answered, and straightway wished 
that he had not been betrayed into that frankness. 

“Neither do I. Jimmie James tliinks he’s first cousin 
to the Almighty. Dee won’t stand for that.” 

“She seems devoted to him.” 

“Oh, she’ll see it through. Dee’s a good old girl. But I 
wish she wouldn’t. Have you told her what you think 
about it?” 

“Certainly not!” 

“Well, don’t bite me. Would you have if she’d asked 
you?” 

“Perhaps. I doubt it.” 

“I’d have thought she’d have come to you. Dee’s 
awfully impressed with you, Bobs. Lots more than I am. 
Would you tell me if I came to you?” 

“Of course.” 

“Why the difference, I wonder? Never mind, old dear. 
I’ll make you a promise right here that I won’t marry 
anyone without your consent. Only, you’ll have to give 
your consent if I want it very much, you know. Won’t 
you, Bobs?” 

“Probablv,” he said. 

She waved him a kiss and was gone. He returned to 
his interrupted task. 

In the midst of a test which should have absorbed all 
his attention a sudden query jarred itself into his brain. 
How had Pat known that he thought it desirable for her 
to marry a man of thirty? Certainly he had never told 
her so. He had never told anyone so. Except Mona. 


CHAPTER XV 


CotfSCIOTTSisTESS of virtue warmed Pat’s heart as she 
jumped from the train at Dorrisdale and sniffed the 
shrewd October air with nostrils that quivered like a kit¬ 
ten’s. She had been working hard at school, ever so much 
harder than there was any real need for, on her music and 
domestic science, and now she was to enjoy some deserved 
recreation. For this was the week of Dee’s wedding and 
she had five days of unmitigated gaiety in prospect. She 
peopled her plans with the figures of those who were to 
be participants of and ministers to her pleasurings, nearly 
all of them, it is significant to note, of the masculine gen¬ 
der. There were the local youth of her own “crowd,” with 
half a dozen of whom she had “had a flutter” more or less 
ardent, in the last year; the out-of-town contingent whom 
she had long known from the viewpoint of childhood and 
upon whom she aspired confidently to try her burgeoning 
charms; and two or three unknowns who were to be of the 
wedding party. Cary Scott had a place in the mosaic, 
too; but not an overshadowing one. The easy effacements 
of time, so potent upon a youthful mind, had dimmed, 
though they had not erased, his image. She was expectant 
of livelier excitements than association with him afforded. 
Nevertheless there was an abiding feeling of assurance in 
having him for a secure background: she looked forward 
happily to being approved by him for having worked so 
hard, much as a playful puppy looks for a tidbit as 
reward of a trick cleverly pertormed. hurthermoie she 

had a surprise in store for him. 

159 


160 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“What’s doing to-night ?” was her first question of Dee, 
after their greetings. 

“Dinner-dance at the Vaughns’.” 

“Everybody going to be there?” 

“All that are on hand. Some of the party aren’t here 
yet.” 

“Who’s back of my crowd?” 

“Selden Thorpe, Billy Grant, Monty Standish; he was 
asking to-day about you.” 

“That stiff!” commented Pat, doing a pirouette. “No 
more pep than a jumping-jack.” 

“Neither would you have if you’d been brought up in a 
bandbox. But he’s begun to lift the lid and look around. 
And he’s a winner to look at.” 

“Maybe I’ll have a shot at him. Dee, I’m out for 
trouble this trip. I’ve been being good so long it hurts.” 

“You look it; the trouble-hunting, I mean,” commented 
the elder, appraising her maid-of-honour. “They ought to 
put a danger signal over you, Pat. Where do you get 
the stuff that you work on the men? Your features are 
nothing to hire out to an artist, you know. And yet-” 

Pat laughed delightedly. “Aren’t they? Well, you 
and Con have got enough cold and haughty beauty for the 
family. Being a bride is becoming to you, Dee. You look 
stunning.” 

Indeed, Dee’s clean-cut, attractive athleticism seemed 
to have taken on a new quality. Her eyes had grown 
more brilliant; there was a higher glow of colour in the 
clear skin; but a more analytical observer than Pat might 
have discerned in the little, straightening lines at the 
corners of the firm, sweet mouth, a conscious effort at 
nervous control. 

“Oh, I’m all right,” said she, carelessly. “When’s Cissie 
coming ?” 



FLAMING YOUTH 


161 


Cissie Parmenter was the Philadelphia schoolmate whom 
Pat had adopted as “b.f.” “To-morrow night. You’re 
a peach to let me have her. What’ll we do with her 
Wednesday, Dee? Only the actual wedding party are 
asked to the Dangerfields’, aren’t they?” 

“That’s all. I’ll get Cary Scott to run her in town 
for luncheon.” 

“Isn’t Mr. Scott one of the ushers?” 

“No. He and Jimmy aren’t very strong for each other. 
I’m using him as my general utility man for the show. 
Dad’s no good for that, and Bobs is too busy.” 

“Cissie’ll be all fired up about Mr. Scott. I’ve told her 
about him.” 

“Did you tell her he was married?” 

“Of course. You don’t think that would cramp Cissie’s 
style, do you? She’ll show him some thrill if he gives her 
half a chance. Not that he’s too brisk a pacer, himself. 
How’s his little flutter with Con going?” 

“All off,” answered Dee, laconically. 

“Does Con miss it much?” 

“No. She’s having a mild whirl a Emslie Selfridge. 
He’s safer.” 

“Safer than Mr. Scott? Couldn’t be. I think Scottie 
invented Safety First.” 

“Do you?” returned Dee drily. “Well, you’ve still got 
something to learn about men, Infant.” 

“I’ve got something to teach ’em, too,” laughed Pat 
impishly. “Will he be there to-night?” 

“Who? Cary? No; he’s in Washington. Gets back 
to-morrow noon.” 

This suited Pat well enough for her projected surprise. 
It went with her temperament that she should have a 
taste for dramatic effect. Assuming that Mr. Scott 
would report himself at the house shortly after his ar- 


162 


FLAMING YOUTH 


rival, she planned to keep the early afternoon free. 
Watchful at her window, on pretence of taking a nap, 
she saw his car come up the drive and hurried down to 
the music room where she seated herself at the piano and 
began to strum casually, taking up the accompaniment of 
a song as he entered the front door. It was sketchy and 
sloppy, that accompaniment, the performance of a jerry- 
trained hand, but it served as background to the fresh, 
deep, unforgotten voice, which met his ears and checked 
his footsteps. 

“If love were what the rose is 
And you were like the leaf.” 

She completed the stanza, conscious, through her 
woman’s sense, of every slow step that brought him 
nearer to her. All the falsity of method, the cheap trick¬ 
ery of intonation which had been coached into her for 
the song, could not wholly devitalise the velvety passion 
of the voice. As the final word died away she whirled 
about. 

“Mr. Scott! I didn’t know you were there.” 

“Didn’t you?” He smiled down into her eyes with 
that quietly ironic look of his which seemed to mock at 
himself as much as at that to which it was directed, tak¬ 
ing her outstretched hand. “I’m glad to see you, Pat. 
But—didn’t you?” 

“You know I did,” she confessed. “I was singing at 
you. Did you like it?” 

“Yes.” 

Unsated of her lust for praise, she persisted: “Don’t 
you think my lessons have done me good?” 

“Have you been taking lessons?” 

“Certainly I have. You told me you wanted me to. 
I’ve been working terribly hard.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


m 


“How hard?” 

“A whole hour, some days. Or pretty nearly.” 

“That is toil! Under whom?” 

“One of the teachers at school. She’s very good.” 

“A professional?” 

“She used to sing in a choir. She says,” Pat dropped 
her voice impressively, “there are lots of voices on the 
stage not as good as mine.” 

“Doubtless.” 

“I wish I knew what you mean when you say that, that 
funny way,” she said pathetically. “I think you’re 
awfully queer to-day, anyway.” Her manner changed 
from petulance to pleading. “Do you think I’ve got a 
terrible lot to learn before I could try?” 

“Try? What?” 

“Going on the stage.” 

“I think you’ve got everything to unlearn,” he said 
calmly. 

Silently she gazed at him. The tender upper curve 
of her lip quivered. She turned back to the piano, 
jangled a discord which was intended to be a sad and 
melting harmony, and told her little, feminine lie in a 
muffled voice: 

“And I did it all on your account, too.” 

“Were you going on the stage on my account?” 

Around she whisked again, jumped from the seat and 
went to him, her face alight. “That’s what I adore about 
you. You never let me put over any bunk. What makes 
you so awfully clever about girls, Mr. Scott?” 

“Not clever at all,” he disclaimed. “I’m simply being 
honest with you. And,” he supplemented, “hoping that 
you’re one of those rare human beings with whom one 
can be honest successfully.” 

‘‘Oh, I am,” she averred fervently. “But you simply 



164 


FLAMING YOUTH 


smeared my feelings. I thought you were going to be 
perfectly thrilled and I get no come-back at all! N Don’t 
you like my voice even a little bit any more, Mr. Scott? 
You did, before.” 

“There’s a quality in it that—that- But what’s the 

use! You won’t do any honest work with it.” 

“You don’t think I’m any good at all, do you?” she 
said peevishly. 

“We were talking about your music, weren’t we?” 

“Ah, but I’ve done a lot besides music since I saw 
you. And I’ve been fearfully good and proper. Aren’t 
you proud?” 

“Of you? Very,” he smiled. 

“Of your influence.” She took a fold of his sleeve 
between finger and thumb and idly pleated at it, keeping 
her intent gaze fixed there. “Nobody’s ever had half so 
much over me. I’ve always done exactly what I liked 
and never done anything I didn’t like.” 

“It’s a delightful world, isn’t it, Pat? But sometimes 
those things have to be paid for.” 

At this she raised her eyes, thoughtful and honest eyes, 
now a little shadowed. “I’ve always known that. And 
I’ll always be ready to pay. Whatever else I may be, 
I’m not yellow, Mr. Scott. I’ll take what I can get, and 
if there’s a—a come-back, I’ll take that, too.” 

“Yes. You’ve got courage. Ca se voit. That sees 
itself.” He had dropped unconsciously into the emphatic 
French idiom. 

“Does it? Plow can you tell? You don’t know me s§ 
well.” 

“No; I don’t.” 

“Yes, you do,” she contradicted him and herself. “I 
think you know me better than anyone ever has.” Again 
she let her glance fall. 



FLAMING YOUTH 


165 


“I know that you will face whatever comes, unafraid. 
That is in your face. No; it’s in the way you bear your¬ 
self. In any event, there it is.” 

“But you did hurt my feelings. Terribly! I thought 
you’d like my music—and maybe pat me on the head—• 
and say ‘Nice little girl’—and give me a kiss and a stick 
of candy.” She slipped her fingers down to his wrist* 
let them creep to the palm of his hand where they clung. 
“Say you’re glad to see me again, Mr. Scott,” she mur¬ 
mured. 

“Very glad.” 

“But”—she tilted her face toward his, turned it away, 
whispered—“I don’t think you act so—very.” 

His free hand clamped strongly, friendlily down upon 
hers for a moment, then released it with a tap. “Are 
you trying to flirt with your grandfather, Pat?” he 
mocked. 

Not for the first time in their intercourse Pat said 
savagely, “I hate you!” But this time she said it to her¬ 
self, with the wrath of disappointment and shamed un¬ 
certainty. She turned to take her music from the piano. 
It fluttered from her grasp to the floor whence he re¬ 
trieved it. Pat’s heart gave a bound of exultation. She 
had seen his hand shake as it held the sheet out to her. 

“Wouldn’t Grandpa like a dance with Granddaughter 
this evening?” she challenged gaily. 

“As many as Granddaughter can spare from her little 
playmates.” 

“Come early then and avoid the rush,” she advised. 
“I’ll keep what I can out of the wreckage. Now I must 
send Dee down to you. She’s got a million things for 
you to do.” 

The million things proved exacting enough to keep 
Scott in town so long that the dance was well under way 


166 


FLAMING YOUTH 


when he reached it. Pat passed him on the floor, float¬ 
ing beatifically in the arms of this or that partner, never 
for more than a few turns with anyone, for the rush was 
on for her favours. After dancing contentedly enough 
with such partners as he could pick up, for several num¬ 
bers, Scott looked about to see whether there was any 
hope of his cutting in on Pat, but failed to find her on 
the floor; so, as the rooms were rather close, he wandered 
outside to smoke a cigarette. The soft carpet of the 
lawn tempted his tired feet. He strolled around the 
house, intending to re-enter by the far end of the vine- 
shrouded piazza, when, turning the corner, he came 
abruptly upon a couple deep in shadow which did not 
prevent his making out that they were close-clasped. 
Noiselessly though he stepped back he saw the girl’s face 
strain back in attentiveness. Pat’s startled eyes peered 
after him in the dark, unrecognising. 

Cary Scott swore. Then he laughed. The laughter 
was more bitter than the curse. 



I 


CHAPTER XVI 

MlSS Cissie Parmenteu strolled down the broad stairs 
at Holiday Knoll, looking neither to the left nor the right. 
She was freshly painted with considerable taste, and ar¬ 
rayed with such precision and perfection that she would 
have suggested a handsome and expensive species of toy 
but for the sleepy and dangerous eyes which were as pro¬ 
foundly human and natural as the rest of her was deli¬ 
cately artificial. In their depths one could surmise vol¬ 
canic possibilities. She was small, daintily made, and 
languid of movement, not without a hint of feline strength. 
Though her regard was apparently fixed upon far-away 
things, she had at once observed the man in the library. 

“You’re Mr. Scott, aren’t you?” she said in a cool and 
lazy voice, advancing with hand outstretched. 

“Yes.” He took the hand. “And you’re Miss Par- 
menter ?” 

“Yes; I’m Cissie. You know, Mr. Scott, I’m a social 
outcast for the afternoon.” 

“It wouldn’t strike one as having weighed on your 
spirits.” 

“Buoyed up by the prospect of meeting you. Aren’t 
you appalled at having a total stranger on your hands 
all afternoon?” 

“On the contrary, I’m thrilled,” he returned with the 
conventional answer. 

She let her slow gaze sweep over him estimatingly. 
“You’re not a bit like I figured out,” she murmured, 
having decided upon the direct-personality gambit, as 

promising the best and promptest returns. 

167 


168 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“No? Well, youth survives these disappointments.” 

“Fishing,” she retorted. “No; I shan’t tell you how 
much nicer you are than the prospectus. What are you 
going to do with me?” 

“Whatever you permit.” 

“Oh, have a care of yourself! That might take you 
far. But I can decide better after eating. Where do we 
go for that?” 

“How would the Ritz do?” 

“Music to my ears. Can you get a cocktail there?” 

“I think it might be managed, confidentially.” 

“That’ll do nicely for a starter.” 

“A starter? I see. And for continuance?” 

“I’m feeling a little down to-day. What would you 
prescribe?” 

“I’ve heard that that medicine with bubbles in it pos¬ 
sesses a self-raising quality.” 

“From now on you’re my family physician. But I’m 
sinking rapidly.” 

He contemplated her curiously. “Believe me, Miss Par- 
menter, I don’t want to spoil sport before it begins, but— 
how old are you?” 

“Twenty-one. Beyond the age of consent—for drinks. 
It’s all right; I know how to say ‘when’ to a bottle. And 
I’m not so old but that you might call me Cissie if you 
like. I think it would help pass the time.” 

“And as I’m still short of forty, I suppose, on the same 
principle, you’d better call me Cary.” 

“How nicely you play back! And Pat told me you 
were slow; nice, but slow.” 

At the mention of Pat’s name a little surge of anger and 
contempt went through Scott’s veins. But he answered 
lightly: “I’m a plodding old party, it’s true. But I do 


FLAMING YOUTH 169 

my best. Now, as to practical details I’m afraid that the 
Ritz would draw the line at champagne.” 

“That’s a blow.” 

“But I bethink me that there’s a locker at a Country 
Club up toward the frozen north that I have entry to, 
if that isn’t too far.” 

“If you’d said Albany it wouldn’t be too far for me.” 

“What would be too far for you, Cissie?” 

She gave him her eyes, alight with gleams of mirth and 
appreciation. “Don’t let me stop you,” she laughed. 
“There are days when my brakes need re-lining. Let’s 
go!” 

Throughout the drive, Cissie alternated between urging 
her companion to put more speed on the car, and light, 
slangy, clever, suggestive chatter about theatres, athletics, 
movies, and the sort of thing that fills the society columns 
of the daily newspapers. At the luncheon she drank two 
cocktails, half of the pint of champagne which was all 
that she would permit to be provided, and then declared 
herself fit for life again. “What’ll we do now?” was her 
way of putting it. 

“What time do they expect you back?” 

“Five sharp. So, of course, I shan’t be there. I never 
am. Play golf, Mr. Scott?” 

“Just an average game, Miss Parmenter.” 

“All right, Cary; I’ll take you on for twenty on our 
handicaps.” 

“You bet fairly high, don’t you?” 

“Yes; and what’s more, I pay up when I lose. If the 
bet isn’t good enough, just to make it more interesting, 
I’ll throw in the odds of a kiss if you win. Do you know 
anyone here who’d loan me a pair of shoes?” 

That matter being arranged, Cissie, playing with cool 
precision, proceeded to beat him by three and one. 


1*70 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Now I’ll have a highball, please, and we’ll trail for 
home,” she directed. “We won’t be more than an hour 

i 

late if you hit it up with that hearse you drive. Are you 
going to claim the loser’s end of the purse?” 

“The loser’s? Oh, I see. But I thought that was the 
winner’s.” 

“Don’t fall all over yourself with unbridled enthusi¬ 
asm,” she jeered. “You’ve got to give three more rousing 
cheers than that to wake me up.” 

“Just at present I’m busy with the car. But to-night 
is coming. What dances will you give me?” 

“The lucky numbers. Seven and Eleven. Aren’t you* 
flattered ?” 

“Almost as much flattered as I am delighted.” 

She twisted in her seat to confront him. “Cary Scott, 
you’re a good bluffer, but it doesn’t go with me. You 
haven’t fallen for me one little bit!” 

“I? Like an avalanche,” he protested. “I find you as 
charming as you are—startling.” 

“Ah, that startling stuff; you know what that is, don’t 
you?” 

“I’m not sure that I do.” 

“I’m showing you my line; that’s all.” 

“And now I find you bewildering. Be kind to the stu¬ 
pidity of one who has not yet become fully acclimated to 
his own amazing country.” 

“Yes; anyone could tell that you don’t fully belong 
with us. You see, every girl has her special line to show, 

nowada} T s.” 

“Like a commercial traveller?” 

“You’ve said it! It’s whatever is supposed to fit her 
personality best. You go to a character reader—there’s 
a wiz in Carnegie Hall, who lays you out a complete map 


FLAMING YOUTH 171 

for twenty-five dollars—and she sizes you up and lays 
out your line for you.” 

“Is this line, perhaps, equipped with a hook?” 

“Eh? Oh, sure!” Cissie laughed, “Hook and bait. 
Yes; it’s a fish-line, all right.” 

“And what is your specialty?” 

“Haven’t I shown it plain enough? It’s the lively and 
risky with just enough restraint to lead ’em on. I’m sup¬ 
posed to have passionate eyes, you know.” 

Scott laughed aloud. “I like you, Cissie.” 

“It’s about time!” she exclaimed. “You haven’t, up 
to now. And I’ve been working pretty hard on you.” 

“That’s very shrewd of you. I mean it, this time. It’s 
realler than the thing we’ve been playing at.” 

“Good man ! It’s mutual. You can have the kiss if you 
want it, just for liking.” 

“But you’d rather I wouldn’t.” 

“And that's very shrewd of you . You’re right; I like 
you that much . . . Cary, I don’t wonder Pat’s batty 
over you.” 

“Pat? You’re quite wrong.” 

“And I’m wrong in thinking you’re crazy about her, 
I suppose.” 

“Equally.” 

“Pat’s line,” remarked the astute Miss Parmenter 
thoughtfully, “is the Minnesota shift up to date; all 
tomboy, you’re-another, take-it-or-leave-it one minute, 
and the next you know she’s a clinging vine and you’re 
it. She can do it with those wonderful eyes and that 
throaty, croaky, heart-breaky voice of hers. It knocks 
the boys cold. And I’d think it would be just the line to 
catch an old—a man of the world like-” 

“An old man like you, you started to say,” prompted 
Scott. “No occasion for embarrassment on my account.” 



172 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Don’t fool yourself by thinking that age makes such 
a difference to girls, these days. They think it does at 
Pat’s age, but a couple of years more makes a big diff. 
Most of the boys I used to be crazy about look like sap- 
heads to me now. They’re too easy. There’s more pep 
in experience; and,” remarked the youthful philosopher, 
“the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Pat’s a pretty 
wise kid, at that. She isn’t all ‘petite gamine .’ ” 

“Evidently she has no secrets from you,” said Scott, 
vexed. 

“We’re b.f.’s, you know. I suppose you think Dirty 
Me for trying to cut in on her with you.” 

“I don’t know that I’d thought of it at all.” 

“Now we’re very old and stately,” said the girl with 
mischievous alarm. “It makes us coldly dignified to be 
teased . . . Heavens! Are we home already ? Good-bye, 
and thank you for a corking afternoon. See you to¬ 
night.” 

She waved him a farewell, but reappeared as his car 
came back around the curve at the side of the house. 
“Don’t forget the lucky numbers, Cary,” she called, in 
her high, sweet drawl. 

“No danger,” he answered, wondering just why she had 
come back to say that. 

He understood when, in the hallway back of Cissie, he 
caught sight of Pat’s surprised and frowning face. 

“The little devil!” he chuckled. But, he thought the 
moment after, was Cissie playing her own game, or Pat’s? 

Within doors Pat rushed the tardy guest upstairs and 
followed into her room. 

“Do hustle,” she said crossly. “You’re gumming the 
game.” 

“Hustle is my ancestral name,” stated Cissie. “I’m 
right in high to-day.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 173 

“I’ll bet a bet you are,” was the reply with a tinge of 
bitterness in it. 

Miss Parmenter’s pleasantly decorated face took on an 
expression of innocent frankness. “What ever made you 
tell me that your Scottie man was slow? I think he’s a 
winner. I’ve fallen for him like—like an avalanche.” 

“You can have him. But where do you get that Cary 
stuff you were working?” 

“Start a bath for me, will you, Mike? Oh, that. He 
asked me to. We’re awful pals. Just like that.” She 
crooked her two perfectly manicured little fingers to¬ 
gether. 

Pat grunted. 

“You know you told me to go as far as I liked, dee- rie.” 

“Well, you did, didn’t you?” 

“Oh, not half,” cooed the b.f. “He’s going to drive 
me back home after the wedding.” 

“That won’t break up my summer!” shouted Pat, from 
the bathroom, above the seethe of the foaming faucets. 

She felt a definite sense of injury, not against Cissie 
so much as against Mr. Scott, who represented, to her 
annoyed mind, a defection on the part of her own pre¬ 
sumptive property. Had Cissie really lured his interest 
away? Or had he lost interest in her, Pat, anyway? Upon 
this point her misgivings were allayed by calling to mind 
the tremulous hand with which he had recovered that sheet 
of music. Yet he had resisted the lure of her touch, the 
mute offer of her lips. Accustomed to the potency of 
physical appeal upon men, she felt at a loss. True, what 
had drawn her to Scott had been his enjoyment of that in 
her which underlay the surface, his capacity for appre¬ 
ciating in her qualities and potentialities which she her¬ 
self felt only dimly and doubtfully when the influence of 
his presence was remote. Yet that he should find her 





174 


FLAMING YOUTH 


attractive on this side, while holding himself under re¬ 
straint against her more direct advances, puzzled and 
discouraged her. Especially if he were, in fact, embark¬ 
ing upon a whirl with Cissie Parmenter. Pat knew Cissie’s 
methods—or thought she did. In truth she decidedly 
underestimated the b.f.’s acumen as well as her adapta¬ 
bility to various kinds of camaraderie. 

Pat determined to make herself extra-specially attrac¬ 
tive to Mr. Scott that evening at the dance. 

Unfortunately to be extra-specially or even ordinarily 
attractive to a person, you must first draw that person 
within the radius of attraction. To Pat’s discomfiture 
Mr. Scott evinced no interest whatsoever in her; barely 
any cognisance of her existence and presence at the dance. 
With the other girls in the wedding party he had early 
dances, to their obvious satisfaction, for in some occult 
way, though not of the party proper, he had come to be 
a central figure of interest. He was deemed “unusual,” 
fascinating, “relieving”—a word which had recently come 
much into vogue in that set. Cissie Parmenter had been 
exploiting him. 

The party was notable for its pretty girls; but Pat, 
though on the score of actual beauty she was far behind 
in the running, glowed among them with her dark, exotic 
radiance, like a flame among flowers. She was beset with 
admirers competing for such fractions of dances as they 
could get. Every man in the room had been a suppliant 
except Mr. Scott. In that atmosphere of adulation Pat 
seemed to become more quiveringly, femininely, alluringly 
alive. She exhaled delight, like a perfume of her ardent 
soul. Yet in all the excitement of her pleasures, she was 
waiting and hoping and manoeuvring. . . . Twice Cary 
Scott had danced with Dee; three times with Connie, who 
was her old, lovely, wistful self for the occasion; Pat didn’t 


FLAMING YOUTH 


175 


feel any too comfortable about that. Once he had danced 
with Cissie, and once sat out with her on the piazza; and 
Pat didn’t feel at all comfortable about that. Here it was 
the twelfth dance and he hadn’t come near her. Between 
two numbers she caught sight of him just outside a door, 
and then and there deserted a lamenting partner. 

“Mister Scott!” 

He turned, and, in spite of himself, felt his breath 
quicken. She was so superb in the sure luxuriance of her 
youth; so appealing in the poise of her body, the turn of 
her head. 

“Having a good time?” he asked courteously. 

“Gorgeous!” she said mechanically. “Who you taking 
in to supper?” 

“Your very charming little friend, Miss Parmenter.” 

“Oh!” said Pat. “That’s terribly nice of }mu. If it 
weren’t for you,” she added viciously, “I’m afraid Cissie’d 
be having a dull time.” 

“I haven’t noticed that she’s had many dull moments,” 
he answered, smiling slightly. 

Pat stamped her foot. “Then you’ve been watching her 

all the time. I think you might have-” She choked a 

little. 

“Night air too much for you, Pat?” he inquired solic¬ 
itously. 

“No; it isn’t. . . . Aren't you going to ask me for a 
dance, Mr. Scott? You didn’t last night, either.” 

“Surely your programme is already full to overflowing.” 

“It is. But I might do some shifty work with it.” 

“Thoughtful of you. But you would doubtless find it 
more amusing to sit out, or perhaps I should say stand 
out, the later dances in some remote nook with some attrac¬ 
tive youth.” He was speaking quite slowly and softly. 
“I might even say . . . any attractive youth.” 




176 


FLAMING YOUTH 


She moved closer to him, with puzzled eagerness in her 
eyes. “Won’t you please tell me what you mean?” 

“Consult your memory,” he suggested. “Surely it will 
go back for twenty-four hours.” 

Illumination came to her. “Was it you who came 
around the corner last night?” 

“It was.” 

Pat’s eyes fell. But there was a light in them which he 
would have found hard to interpret, harder than he 
thought her next plaintive, exculpatory words: “It’s been 
so long since anyone has petted me.” 

“And you require a certain amount of petting to keep 
you up to form,” he remarked with cold contempt. 

“You’ve got the meanest way of speaking,” she mut¬ 
tered, before making direct response. “Well, if nobody 
ever pets you, you get to feeling like a social leper; as 
if nobody cared about you. That’s a ghastly feeling.” 

“I’m sure you’re quite competent to guard yourself 
against it.” 

“Well, you wouldn’t pet me,” she said very low, “when 
you’d hurt my feelings. In the music room.” 

“How very remiss of me!” 

Her attitude changed. Her boyish shoulders straight¬ 
ened. Her firm little chin went up. “How much did you 
see last night?” 

“Sufficient to suggest that I was in the way.” 

“Were Monty and I clinched?” 

“Quite so.” 

“And you went on right away?” 

“Naturally.” 

“If you had stayed,” she said calmly, “you might have 
been of some use. Monty was pickled. He was just going 
to crash when I grabbed him.” 

“Is that true, Pat?” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


ITT 


She met his searching look with unwavering eyes, her 
nostrils wide with pride. “Do you think I’m so afraid 
of you—or of anyone—that I’d lie about it?” 

To look at her and disbelieve was impossible. 

“Besides,” she added, her voice breaking a little in 
self-pity, “I told you I was through with that necking 
game.” 

“How do you want me to apologise, little Pat?” 

Her unerring instinct for the charming, the compelling 
move inspired her. “I don’t want you to apologise. I 
want you to dance with me.” 

“Any and all that you’ll give me—and with all grati¬ 
tude and contrition.” 

“I’ll filch out two; the fifteenth and the fifth extra. 
You must be watching. And—about supper—couldn’t 
you ?” 

“No. Not possibly. How could I?” 

She smiled, ruefully yet with a shining quality in her 
disappointment. “Of course you couldn’t. It wouldn’t 
be you if you did. I don’t care—now.” 

Until the fifteenth number Scott did not return to the 
ballroom but wandered outside in dreamy and restless 
expectation. What he expected, he could not have told. 
He was conscious chiefiy of an enormous relief in the dis¬ 
covery that Pat had not gone back on her good resolu¬ 
tions. But this was only part of what he felt. The callow- 
est sophomore could hardly have found himself more 
eager or less certain of his ground, than did Cary Scott, 
man of ripened wisdom and wide experience of women 
though he was, as he entered to claim his appointment. 

“But I tell you, Monty,” Pat was saying to a tall and 
particularly handsome youth who stood before her, pro¬ 
gramme in hand and a look of almost ludicrous dis- 






178 


FLAMING YOUTH 


appointment on his face, “you’ve made a mistake. You’ve 
mixed your dates with cocktails.” 

“I told you last night I’d stay off it,” muttered the 
youth, “and I’ve done it. And now you’re throwing me 
down.” 

“Oh, come around later,” said Pat carelessly. She 
slipped into Scott’s arms, whispering: 

“Don’t let anyone cut in.” After a few turns she con¬ 
tinued: “Do you know it’s ever and ever so long since 
we’ve had a dance together.” 

“It might be a thousand years in its effect on you. 
You were almost a little girl then and I—what was it you 
called me?—your wise and guiding friend.” 

“Aren’t you that now? You must always be,” she 
returned quickly. “And for me only. Do you like Cissie, 
Mr. Scott?” 

“Immensely. She’s charming.” 

“Better than me?” challenged Pat. 

In the measure of the dance he caught her close to him 
for a moment and felt the little, excited access of laughter 
which ran through her body like a tearless sob. “What 
do you think?” he queried. 

Her cheek fluttered against his. “Then that’s all 
right,” she breathed. 

“You dear!” whispered Scott. He felt himself losing 
his head; told himself that this was inexcusable foolishness, 
unfair, unworthy, sterile trifling with evil chance. Yet he 
lacked the force to draw back. 

“Would you mind very much,” asked Pat deprecatingly 
after a pause, “if I renigged on the fifth extra?” 

“Indeed I should! Unless”—he tried for a light 
tone—“there’s some special reason for it, such as that you 
don’t want to give it to me.” 

“Oh, I want to terribly . But I’m in such a mix-up and 
that dance would straighten me out ... I thought per- 


FLAMING YOUTH 


179 


haps you’d wait and take me home. I’m going quite early; 
about three. Will you?” 

“Yes.” 

“We’ll walk through the lawns; it’s only three minutes. 
Watch out for my signal.” 

She was giving him orders as one with a proprietary 
claim. Scott thrilled to it. He would not let himself 
think to what it was leading. His mind was absorbed in 
the delight of her, that dark radiance of personality, the 
sweet compulsion of her charm. He would have waited all 
night, though a little time before he had thought himself 
beginning to be bored. It did not seem long when he saw 
her coming toward him, her wrap over her arm. 

“Quick!” she directed. “Or there’ll be a howl about my 
leaving. I’m not even going to say good-night.” 

Then they were in the autumn-spiced darkness together, 
her arm linked in his. It seemed quite natural that her 
fingers should slip into and twine themselves about his 
palm. 

“Isn’t it a grand little world!” she chuckled softly. 
“I’ve had such fun to-night.” 

“You’re a wonderful little Pat,” he replied unsteadily. 

“D’you really think I’m wonderful? Sometimes I think 
so myself. Other times”—she hunched her shoulders in a 
gesture peculiar to her—“I think I’m just like everyone 
else.” 

“Like no one else in the world.” 

“Because no two people are alike, of course. I’d hate 
to be exactly somebody’s twin. . . . You’re that way, too. 
You don’t remind me of anyone I’ve ever seen. Most 
men do.” 

They had come to a gate which resisted Pat’s attempt, 
being locked. “Oh, very well!” she said, addressing it, 
“I’ll just climb you” 

She attained the top, agile as a cat. But in getting 


180 


FLAMING YOUTH 


down she tore her frock. “Oh, hell!” she cried lamentably. 
“Are you shocked, Mr. Scott? You don’t like me to swear, 
do vou?” 

“I like you to be your very self, Pat.” 

“It’s easy to be that with you. You’re.an easy person 
to be with,” she meditated. 

She stopped under the shelter of a small arbour span¬ 
ning one of the sideyard paths of Holiday Knoll. Clematis 
in full glory covered it. The faint, rich odour of its late 
blossoming, dewy and fresh and virginal as if the aging 
year, after all its fecund maternity of summer, had again 
put forth its claim to imperishable maidenhood in the 
blooms, enveloped them. She turned upon him the slant 
challenge of her eyes from beneath the clouding mass of 
hair. 

“Do you truly like me,” she wheedled, “better than 
Cissie?” 

As if the words were torn from the depths of him and 
forced through his constricted throat, he answered: 

“I’m mad about you.” 

“Oh-h-h-h-h,” she crooned, and there was both dismay 
and delight in the sound. “I didn’t want you to say that.” 

“I didn’t want to say it,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean 
to say it.” 

He stared intently before him; his brain felt numb. 
There was an appalled sense of inner catastrophe, wholly 
unforeseen, inherent in the impossible situation. 

“Oh, why did you have to go and say it?” she wailed in 
childish resentment. “It spoils everything.” 

He made no reply. Her intonation changed, became 
daring and seductive. “It’s just a—a—sort of fatherly 
interest, isn’t it?” 

“No.” 

“Now you’re angry. But it ought to be.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


i8i; 


“Do you want it to be?” 

“No. I want it to be—as it is. Yet I don’t.” 

He gathered himself together. “I’m sorry, little Pat. 
Suppose we agree to forget it.” 

“I won’t,” she mutinied. “I don’t want to forget it.” 

“I do,” he said moodily. 

“Then I won’t let you.” 

Slowly she lifted her hands and held them out to him. 
The finger tips were icy cold to his clasp. He could hear 
her quick, unsteady breathing. 

“Pat! Little Pat!” he whispered. 

A smile blossomed upon her curved mouth, tender, trem¬ 
ulous, persuasive. She swayed forward, lifting her face, 
half closing her eyes. 

With the gasp of a man whose last strength of restraint 
is shattered, he enfolded her, crushing his lips down upon 
hers. 

Only the one long, slow kiss in the breathless silence, 
and all the world forgotten in its ecstasy. * • 

Then Pat pressed herself gently back from him, looked 
eagerly, curiously, triumphantly into his face, and stood 
clear. 

“My God, Pat!” he groaned. “I didn’t mean to do 
that.” 

“I did,” she said. 

From the roses drooping below her breast she detached 
a bud, crushed to a perfumed splotch of colour in the fierce 
pressure of their embrace, and held it out to him. 

“Keepsake,” she breathed. “It’s red, red, red. It’s 
the colour of life. My colour. Pat’s colour. Good-night, 
Mr. Scott.” 

“Mister” Scott ! Af te? that fusion of lips and longings. 



CHAPTER XVII 


Insistent jangling of the telephone woke Scott next 
morning at the club. He was prepared for the rough 
sweetness of Pat’s voice in his ear. 

“Is that you, Mr. Scott? Aren’t you up yet? Lazy!” 

“Good-morning, little Pat. What time is it?” 

“I did wake you up, then. It’s terribly early—for me. 
Only nine. Aren’t you surprised to hear me?” 

“Not a bit.” 

“Oh! You expected me to call up. Boasting, aren’t 
you? I didn’t intend to call you.” 

“But I intended to call you. What changed your 
mind ?” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said evasively. “I woke up 
early myself, and I suppose I felt lonely. When are you 
coming out?” 

“Just as soon as I can get there.” 

Her soft, elfin chuckle was the reception which this 
announcement got. “Quick, then! I want awfully to 
see you now. And I might change my mind later.” 

Throughout the hurried processes of dressing while he 
breakfasted, Scott strove to quiet and command his 
thoughts, to find some clue to this tangle of passion 
wherein he had become ensnared. Incredible that he 
should so have lost himself, after the warning of the earlier 
experience. She, too, had been carried beyond her depth 
by a feeling presumably uninterpretable to her inexperi¬ 
ence; so he believed. True, she had been through senti¬ 
mental encounters before, by her own admission, but he 

too fatuously assumed that these were of minor and 

182 


FLAMING YOUTH 183 

transient import, that it had remained to him to awaken 
her. “Boasting,” Pat would have said. 

She was awaiting him in the music room. “I thought 
you were never coming,” she sighed. “But the others 
aren’t up yet.” She half lifted her arms, expectant, 
enticing. 

“Wait,” said he. 

She gave him a quick glance, puzzled, apprehensive, a 
little angry. “You’re going to scold me. It was all your 
fault.” 

“Absolutely. If there is anyone to be scolded it’s I.” 

“It wasn't ” she declared with one of her vehement and 
point-blank reversals. “I did it.” Her face took on its 
most impish expression. “Bad bunny! I don’t care.” 

“I care,” he said evenly. “More than I could have 
believed it possible to care. I love you, Pat.” 

“Oh, no!” she protested. “I didn’t want you to say 
that.” 

“What did you expect?” he demanded, taken aback. 
“Did you want this to be just a cheap and easy little 
flirtation—a flutter, as you call it?” 

“No-o. I didn’t want it to be that. I wanted you to— 
to like me. But why did you have to say that?" 

“As a justification. No, not quite that; nothing can 
justify me. But as an excuse, not for myself, but for 
you.” 

“For me? I don’t understand.” 

“Think, Pat.” His voice was very gentle. 

Her dark, delicate brows drew down in concentration. 
“Yes; I think I do see. You mean you would not have 
kissed me that way without—without thinking a lot 
of me.” 

“I mean that I should not be here now if I were not 
deeply and wholly in love with you.” 


184 FLAMING YOUTH 

“And you’re telling me to keep me from feeling ashamed 
of myself.” 

“Yes. There is nothing shameful in my feeling for you, 
inexcusable as it is.” 

“I think,” she pronounced slowly, “you’re the most 
divine man I’ve ever met.” 

“Oh, no,” he refuted bitterly. “Just a weakling. But 
I give you my word, dear love, if I could have foreseen 
this I w T ould have gone to the farthest corner of the earth 
rather than have it come about.” 

She lifted startled and wondering eyes to his. “Why?” 

“You know how things are with me, Pat. You know 
I’m not free.” 

A lively interest animated her expression. “Oh, yes. 
Though I’ve never thought of it much. Tell me about 
your wife.” 

He winced. “What is there to tell?” 

“Tell me what she is like? Is she dark or fair? Are- 
you very much in love with her?” 

“Pat!” 

“Well, you must have loved her or you wouldn’t Have 
married her, would you? Doesn’t she care for you?” 

“I will tell you this much,” he said after a pause. “We 
are completely estranged. But as she is still my wife in 
name and likely to remain so, I cannot discuss her. Not 
even with you.” 

“Oh, very well!” Pat’s familiar imp had taken pos¬ 
session of her face again. “It’s none of my business, of 
course.” 

“That is not quite fair of you, is it?” 

“Of course it isn’t.” She caught his hand, pressed her 
cheek down into it, and was violently crushed into his 
arms, her mouth quivering beneath his kiss. 

“My God, how I love you!” he groaned. 


FLAMING YOUTH 


135 


This time she accepted it. “Do you?” she crooned. 
Releasing herself she drew him over to the divan, where 
she snuggled close to him. “I believe you do. It seems 
so funny. But I don’t see that it makes much difference, 
your being married.” 

“This difference; that it’s all wrong, and unfair to you, 
and only means suffering later on.” 

“That isn’t what I meant.” With lowered face she 
plucked nervously at his coat sleeve. “I mean—suppose 
you were free; you wouldn’t want to marry me, would 
you?” 

“Good God, Pat! I want it more than anything else 
in the world.” 

“Little Me?” she crowed in delight. “That seems 
awfully funny. You’re so—so different, and you know 
so much, and I don’t know anything.” She pondered the 
matter. “If I was ten years older, or you were ten years 
younger I think it would be thrilling! But of course 
there’s nothing in that,” she added briskly. “You’re 
married and that’s settled. Am I acting like a rotter?” 

“I am,” he answered hoarsely. “I’m sorry, little Pat. 
I’ve been a beast. But I think I’ve got your point of 
view, now. It’s rather a shock—but there won’t be any 
more of that kind of love-making from me.” 

Like a little, lithe tigress she pounced upon him. 
“There will!” she panted rebelliously. “I want it to be 
so. I love to have you pet me.” 

“And I haven’t even the strength to resist that,” he mut¬ 
tered. “I love you so.” 

“Then you must be very nice to me all the rest of the 
party, and I’ll save out as many dances as I can for you, 
and you can take me home again to-night. Couldn’t you 
come back a little while this afternoon, late?” 


186 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“I’d go anywhere in the world and give up anything 
in the world for a moment with you, Pat.” 

“Then be here at five o’clock. All the others will be 
dressing or bathing or gabbling. We’ll have the place 
to ourselves again. Aren’t I nice to you, Mr. Scott?” 

“How can you call me Mister, after this?” 

“I don’t know,” she said pensively. “It seems more 
natural. But I suppose I could call you Cary. Cissie did. 
I was furious at her.” 

“No-need. There’s no room for anyone else in my heart 
or thought but you.” 

“But you’re going to run her over to Philadelphia in 
your car.” 

“Am I? I hadn’t heard about it.” 

“Aren’t you? What a liar Cissie is! Then you’re 
going to run me over when I go back to school. Will 
you?” 

“Of course. But what will the family think of all 
this ?” 

“Nothing. I’m only the Infant to them. If they did 
think anything about it it wouldn’t make any special dif¬ 
ference. They’d think it was a lovely joke.” 

“You mean even if they knew that I am in love with 
you ?” 

She gave him a glowing glance. “They’d say, ‘Little 
Pat’s gone and snared herself a real live man.’ You don’t 
know this family.” Suddenly she drew away from him, 
jumped to her feet, and darted to the door, where she 
stood smiling and poised. “What’s it all coming to, any¬ 
way?” she laughed. 

What, indeed? Scott put the question to himself, but 
in no spirit of laughter. 

Toward womankind Cary Scott had much of the con¬ 
tinental attitude. Since the separation from his wife 


FLAMING YOUTH 


187 


and the freedom of action which it implied, he had played 
the game of passion, real or counterfeit, in sundry places 
and with sundry partners, always married women hith¬ 
erto, and always within the code as he interpreted it. 
But there remained in him enough of the American to 
inhibit him from the thought of a purposeful siege upon 
a young, unmarried girl of a household wherein he was 
a professed friend. Besides, he loved Pat too well, he 
told himself, to harm her. 

It was incredible; it was shameful; it was damnable; 
but this child, this petite gamine , this reckless, careless, 
ignorant, swift-witted, unprincipled, selfish, vain, lovable, 
impetuous, bewildering, seductive, half-formed girl had 
taken his heart in her two strong, shapely woman-hands, 
and claimed it away from him—for what? A toy? A 
keepsake? A treasure? 

What future was there for this abrupt and blind 
encounter of his manhood and her womanhood? 

He could find no answer. But of one fact he was 
appallingly certain: that all the radiance, the glamour 
wherewith he had surrounded the figure of Mona, all the 
desire which the soft loveliness, the reluctant half-yielding 
of Constance had inspired in him, were merged and sub¬ 
merged in the passion that had swept him into Pat’s 
eager and clinging arms. 

To what bitter and perhaps absurd end? For he was 
bound, and she hardly more than a playful child. He 
recalled her strange look as she had left him. What 
might one read in it? A glow of possessiveness? A 
gleam of bright mockery? Or the undecipherable Sphinx- 
hood of the woman triumphant who knows herself loved? 



CHAPTER XVIII 


With unwearying strategy Pat made opportunities 
for being with Scott thereafter. Each time they were 
together alone she came to his arms as sweetly and natu¬ 
rally as if she claimed him of right; each time until the 
evening before the wedding when, as he drew her to him, 
she twitched away with a boyish, petulant jerk pf the 
shoulders. 

“What is it, Pat?” he queried. 

“Nothing. I don’t want you to pet me. That’s all.” 

He had the acumen to suspect that this might be a 
first crisis in their newly established relations, though he 
did not fathom her purpose. “Very well,” he assented 
quietly. “You are quite right, of course.” 

This did not suit Pat at all. From her youthful suitors 
she was accustomed to woeful protests. “Am I?” she 
retorted perversely. “I’m not. There’s nothing right 
about it.” 

“No. But there is this. I shall never make any claim 
upon you except as you wish it.” 

“Well, I don’t wish it. Not now.” A dart of lightning 
flashed through her clouded look. “I might to-morrow.” 

His brows lifted, enquiringly. Mockingly, too? Pat 
wondered. You never could tell with Mr. Scott. What 
would he say? He said nothing. 

“D’you know what I mean?” demanded Pat, who didn’t 
clearly know herself. 

“Perfectly.” 

“What?” 

“Coquetry. That’s a form of dishonesty between us. 

188 


FLAMING YOUTH 189 

And between us there is no reason nor place for anything 
but honesty.” 

She came to him then, encircled him closely, drew her 
lips from his, after a time, to murmur: “You understand 
me so. When you say things like that I’m crazy about 
you.” 

Against his better judgment he said: “I wonder how 
much you really care for me, Pat?” 

“Oh, an awful lot! Or I wouldn’t be acting like this. 
But,” she added with pensive frankness, “I’ve been just 
as crazy about other people before.” 

“I see. It’s the normal thing for you to feel this way 
toward someone.” 

“Oh, well; you expect to have somebody in love with 
you,” she explained. “Think how lost you’d feel without 
it. And it’s natural to play back, isn’t it? Now I’ve hurt 
you.” She spoke the words with a kind of remorseful 
interest as an experimentalist might feel pity for the 
animal under his knife. 

“That doesn’t matter. One gets used to being hurt.” 

All woman, at this she tightened her embrace. “I don’t 
want you to be hurt. I do love you. Only with me it 
doesn’t last. But there’s never been anyone who inter¬ 
ested me as much as you do. I don’t see what you find in 
me, though.” 

“ ‘Said the rose to the bee.’ ” He forced himself to 
laugh as he gave the quotation. But within, the cold dis¬ 
illusionment of whatever blind hopes he may have felt, 
which had underlain his passion from the first, asserted 
itself. W T hat constancy could he expect from this will- 
of-the-wisp girl? And what could a lasting attraction 
mean for her except such unhappiness as he knew himself 
fated to suffer? He took his resolution. Whatever might 
come to him he must so command himself and his actions 


190 


FLAMING YOUTH 


as to safeguard Pat in every possible way. Already, hie 
knew, his intellectual influence over that unsated, groping, 
casual mind was strong enough to outlast any change in 
the more purely physical attraction which she felt for 
him. If he could find the strength to crush down his own 
passion, he might still mould her to make something of 
herself, direct her ardent temperament into channels 
through which she would eventually come to safe harbour. 
There lies in every man of strbng mentality a trace of the 
pedagogue. Scott had it. If he could not be Pat’s lover, 
he might find some self-sacrificing satisfaction in being 
her guide and mentor. That he was prepared for self- 
sacrifice was the best evidence in his own mind of the 
quality of his love for the girl. In his lesser affairs he 
had sought only self-satisfaction. 

“My dearest,” he said, “I think we have come to a 
turning-point. We’ve got to stop this sort of thing.” 

She cuddled closer to him in the remote darkness of the 
swing where they sat out two successive dances which she 
had contrived to save for him. “I don’t want to!” she 
rebelled. 

“Do you think I want to! But I’m thinking of the 
risk.” 

“You said there wasn’t any danger with you,” she 
teased. “Boasting, were you, when you claimed you had 
self-control enough for both of us.” 

“I’m not thinking of that kind of danger.” 

“What then? Oh, of our being trapped! But there’s 
only one more day after this,” she pleaded, “and then I 
go back.” 

“But you’ll be coming home again before long.” 

“By that time I may be crazy about someone else,” was 
the calm reply. 


FLAMING YOUTH 191 

“Which is pleasant for me to contemplate,” he replied 
grimly. 

“It’s a mess, isn’t it? What d’you expect me to do? 
What do you want me to do?” 

“If it’s a question of the best thing for you,” he said, 
speaking slowly and with effort, “that would be for you 
to fall in love genuinely with some man who would under¬ 
stand you and safeguard you-” 

“You want me to marry? Do you, Cary?” 

“It will almost kill me,” he said between his teeth. “But 
—it’s the way, for you.” 

“Probably it is. I’ll make a rotten wife,” she said, as 
she had said to Dr. Osterhout. 

“You could make heaven or hell for a man. But mar¬ 
riage alone isn’t going to be enough. There are other 
things.” 

“You mean—children?” 

“That, too. But what I meant was some background 
for yourself. Your music, or reading, or some interest to 
fall back on.” 

“Why?” 

“Because you’ve got an eager and active mind, Pat. A 
half-starved mind, if you only knew it. It’s going to 
demand things when the novelty begins to wear off.” 

“When I get tired of my husband?” 

“I hope you’re going to marry a man of whom you 
won’t tire,” he said gravely. “But there’s a certain 
monotony about marriage. Many women tire of that. 
Then is the danger time.” 

“Then I’ll ‘-•end for you.” A devil sparkled in her eyes. 

“I wouldn’t come.” 

“Not come* Not when I needed you?” 

“From the ends of the earth if you needed me. But 
not for any caprice. I’d put you on honour there. Plap- 



192 


FLAMING YOUTH 


piness doesn’t lie in that direction, little Pat. What I 
want for you is happiness.” 

She brooded upon this darkly. “I believe you do,” she 
whispered after a time. “More than for yourself.” 

“More than for myself,” he repeated. “Why not?” 

“Don’t make me cry,” she said. “It tears me to pieces 
to cry. And then, I’m such a sight!” 

“Nonsense!” he returned brusquely. “You’re not going 
to. What is there to cry about? ‘Men have died,’ you 
know, ‘and worms have eaten them, but not for love.’ ” 

“What’s that from?” she asked, seeking relief in the 
turn. “Ibsen?” 

“Not exactly,” he smiled. “It was said as a reminder 
by a charming and rebellious Pat of her time named Rosa¬ 
lind.” 

“Oh, I know! ‘As You Like It.’ Aren’t I clever! The 
Rosalind reminds me of something. Aunt Linda’s here. 
Have you seen her?” 

“No. Who is she?” 

“My very pettest aunt. She’s an old peach. I’ll take 
you to her if she’s broken away from the bridge game. But 
first-” She lifted pleading and hungry eyes to him. 

“Well, Pat?” 

“Our being so—so dam ’ good and proper doesn’t have 
to begin until I go, does it?” 

He swept her into his arms, held her close and long. 
“Oh, Pat! Little wonderful Pat,” he breathed. “What 
am I ever to do without you?” 

“I don’t want you to do without me,” she murmured. 
“I want you to be always somewhere—somewhere where I 
can find you if-Be careful! Here comes some butt-in.” 

They returned to the dancing floor, where Pat after a 
survey drew Scott by the hand across the room to a group 
in a corner. “Here she is,” she announced. “That’s Aunt 





FLAMING YOUTH 


193 


Linda.” Before she could go further with this informal 
presentation a circle of importunate claimants had swept 
about her. 

“How do you do, Mr. Cary Scott?” said the lady before 
whom he found himself standing. 

“Mrs. Parker!” he ejaculated. 

Pat’s description of “old peach” was decidedly over¬ 
drawn as to the adjective, though not as to the noun. 
Aunt Linda was a slim, twinkling, rose-complexioned 
woman of thirty-five, gowned in a work of art and char¬ 
acterised by a quality of worldliness which, like Scott’s 
own, was a degree above mere smartness. She carried with 
her a breath of the greater outer world. Moreover she 
was, if not beautiful, extremely attractive to look at by 
virtue of a sort of eternal fitness. 

“You’ve forgotten me,” she accused lightly. “Or at 
least, my name. I’m Miss Fentriss.” 

Not a muscle of Scott’s face testified to his surprise at 
this unexpected denial of a perfectly remembered name. 
“So stupid of me,” he confessed. “Won’t you try a round 
of this dance?” 

“No; I’m not dancing. But you may take me to some 
cooler spot, if you know of any.” 

No sooner were they beyond earshot of the crowd than 
she said: “So you have not forgotten Taormina.” 

“I have forgotten whatever you wish me to forget.” 

“Always the perfection of tact,” she mocked. “It 
would be more flattering that you should remember. 
Though not too much.” 

“A cliff of beaten gold overlooking a sea of shimmering 
silver, a waft of perfume on the air, the charm of beauty 
and mystery, both of which still endure after these seven 
years.” 

“Shall I dispel the mystery? I was Mrs. Parker thes 


FLAMING YOUTH 


194 

only because an independent-minded vagrant such as I am 
finds travel in Europe more convenient under a married 
name than as a Miss. So one does not take, but invents 
a husband. Here and now I am Ralph Fentriss’s half- 
sister and Patricia Fentriss’s aunt.” 

“Something of an occupation in itself,” he reflected 
aloud. 

“It is. What, if one may ask, are you doing in that 
gallery? Pat curled herself on the foot of my bed this 
morning and discussed the universe for an hour. Chiefly 
you.” 

“Vastly flattered! Et aprds?” 

“Afterward? That is for you to answer, isn’t it? Why 
are you laying siege to the child’s mind?” 

“Because I dislike waste. It is too keen a mind to be 
frittered away on nothings.” 

“Has Pat been making love to you?” The question was 
put without the slightest alteration of the easy tone. 

“Really, that’s a question which-” 

“Don’t pretend to be shocked. Women always do make 
love to you, don’t they?” 

“You didn’t,” smilingly he reminded her, “at Taor¬ 
mina. Hence my blighted life.” 

“No. I preferred to have you make love to me. You 
did it so expertly.” 

“And wholly unsuccessfully.” 

“What did you expect? A correct young married 
woman going on to meet her husband by the boat! Would 
you have been so vehement if you had known me to be an 
unmanned girl?” 

“I haven’t made it a practice to make love to unmar¬ 
ried girls.” 

“Why select Pat, then?” She paused, giving him time 
toispeculate upon what Pat might or might not have unin- 



FLAMING YOUTH 


195 


tentionally revealed to this shrewd observer. “I was 
twenty-eight then,” she pursued, “and I found you a dan¬ 
gerous wooer, even though I knew it was not pour Is bon 
motif. Pat isn’t nineteen yet.” 

“Mademoiselle has taken the ordering of this matter 
into her own hands?” he queried mildly. 

“Dieu m'en garde!” she laughed. “It is as an old friend 
of yours that I speak.” 

“Then I am prepared for the worst,” he sighed. 
“Strike!” 

“Still of a pretty wit.” She spoke sharply, but her 
eyes were not without kindness for him. “Danger, Mr. 
Cary Scott! Danger!” 

He did not pretend to misunderstand. “Let me assure 
you that I am not wholly without principle, Miss Fen- 
triss.” 

“You? Granted. But what of Pat? Has my scape¬ 
grace little witch of a niece any principles whatever? I 
doubt it.” 

So, after all, he had misunderstood. “Are you, then, 
warning me of danger to myself? C’est a rire , n 9 est-ce 
pas?” 

“It is not to laugh at all. I am serious. I have been 
watching you this evening when you were with Pat and 
when you were only following her with your eyes. Your 
expression is not always guarded, if one has learned to 
read the human face.” 

He flushed. Then there came upon him the reckless 
desire to ease his soul of the secret which filled it. She 
had invited it, and he instinctively knew that to this 
serene, poised, self-sufficing, sage woman of the world he 
could speak in the assurance of sympathy and without 
fear of incomprehension or betrayal. 


196 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“It’s true,” he said beneath his breath. “I love her. 
I love her as I never dreamed it possible to love.” 

“And you’ve told her so.” He made no reply. “I know 
you have because I know Pat. She’s as greedy as she is 
shrewd; she’d know and she’d never be happy until she’d 
had it out of you. And then she’d be sorry and blame you 
for speaking.” 

“Yes. I’ve told her,” he muttered. 

“Inevitable that you should have. Not that it makes 
any particular difference, but you’re still married, aren’t 
you?” 

“Yes.” 

“Any prospects of change?” 

“Prospects? No!” 

“Ah, well; I haven’t an idea that Pat would marry 
you anyway. She appears to regard you as rather an 
elderly person, quite delightful to play with, but belonging 
to another world. Her infatuation will probably die out.”' 

“Give me credit for being decent enough to hope and 
know that it will.” 

“Yet there is no certainty about it. Your appeal to 
her senses may be temporary, doubtless is. But you have 
taken hold upon her mind to a degree which she herself 
does not appreciate, and that is a more profound and 
lasting influence. I wonder if you did it deliberately.” 

“No. Yes. I don’t know whether I did or not. It 
may have been at the back of my brain all the time.” 

“That sounds more like Pat’s honesty than your own 
diplomatic way of looking at things. It would be quite 
incredible that she has exerted a counter-influence upon 
you.” 

“Why incredible, since I love her?” was the quiet reply. 

She gave him a swift, estimating glance before she went 


FLAMING YOUTH 197 

Dn: “Pm very fond of Pat, Mr. Scott. Most of my money 
will go to her eventually, unless I marry.” 

“Which is inevitable,” he put in. 

“Which is the most improbable thing in the world. 
And I want to see her happy. She has great possibilities 
of happiness, and great possibilities of tragedy. It is a 
tragic face, rather; have you noticed that?” 

“It is a face impossible to analyse.” 

“True enough. It has the mysterious quality that 
quite outdoes beauty. Men go mad over that type of 
face, though one doesn’t find it in poetry or painting. 
I wonder why? Is it because genius doesn’t dare that 
far, because it is untransferable even for genius? Per¬ 
haps it is genius in itself. Didn’t some poet say that 
beauty of a kind is genius ? . . . What are you going to do 
with Pat, Mr. Scott?” 

“Nothing. What is there to do?” 

“Laissez faire? There’s danger in letting things take 
their course too. There is danger everywhere in this sort 
of affair. Let me interpret a little of Pat’s mind for you. 
She is a combination of instinctive shrewdness, ignorance, 
false standards and beliefs, and straight thinking. There’s 
an innocence about her that is appalling, an innocence as 
regards life as it really is. One might say that her ideas 
of the more intimate phases of life are formed mainly 
from the trashy, sexy-sentimental plays and the more 
trashy motion pictures that she loves. She believes that 
sin is always punished in the direct and logical way. If 
she should surrender to a man she would expect first, to 
have a baby at once; second, that the man would naturally 
despise«and abandon her; that’s what the modern drama 
teaches, on the ground, one supposes, that it’s an influ¬ 
ence for safety. And perhaps,” continued the analyst 


198 


FLAMING YOUTH 


thoughtfully, “it is. Though I’m rather for the truth 
myself. But there are other things taught in the same 
school that aren’t so safe. Did you happen to read a 
fool book called The Salamander some years ago?” 

“Yes; but I didn’t think it so bad.” 

“Because you’re a man and don’t understand what the 
effect of it has been. A Salamander school of fiction and 
drama has grown out of it. The central idea is that if a 
girl is ‘pure’ she can get herself into any kind of situa¬ 
tion, take anygkind of chance with any kind of man, play 
the game of passion to the limit and yet come out un¬ 
scathed ; virtue its own safeguard, and that sort of thing. 
Why I saw a play this winter which was written to prove 
that a girl of to-day could spend a night alone in a house 
with a man with whom she was in love without any thought 
of harm. Yet the censors suppress honest portrayals 
of life as it really is. It’s a great little world, Cary Scott, 
if your mind doesn’t weaken. But I think mine has! 9 * 

Pat, passing by on the arm of a worshipping partner, 
stopped to give them a smile. 

“What are you talking about, you two?” 

“You’ve guessed it; about you,” returned the young 
aunt. 

For a hidden moment Pat’s eyes met Scott’s and shot 
forth their ardent message before the sweeping lashes 
curled down. “Leave me a few shreds,” she called back 
gaily. 

“Pat considers herself a miracle of astuteness and 
knowledge,” pursued the aunt. “Having been taught the 
gospel of lies and trash, she is sure of her own natural 
inviolability. If anything in the world ought to be banned 
from the access of Pat and her kind, it is the Salamander- 
story of the Girl Who Always Comes Out Right. It isn’t 


FLAMING YOUTH 199 

true; it never will be true; it never has been true. Women 
aren’t that way.” 

She let her pensive, grey gaze wander to the doorway 
wherein Pat had vanished, then return to meet Scott’s. 

“I know,” she said coolly. “I’ve tried.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


Slow and stately, the measure of the Lohengrin Wed¬ 
ding March pulsated through the church; much slower 
and statelier than Herr Wagner ever intended that it 
should be delivered, unforeseeing that his minute direc¬ 
tions would be universally disregarded off the stage in 
order that the bride might make her progress up the aisle 
less like a human being with a happy goal in sight than like 
a rusty mechanism directed by a hidden and uncertain 
hand. Even to that halting rhythm, however, Mary Delia 

Eentriss, owner of her own name and her own maiden self 

* 

for the last time, managed to walk like a proud and grace¬ 
ful young goddess to the accompaniment of something 
more than the usual hum of admiration and excitement. 
T. Jameson James stood awaiting her, looking handsome, 
well-groomed, perfectly self-possessed, and even more self- 
satisfied. 

As Dee turned she raised her head slightly and let one 
slow look range over the gathered congregation, a gesture 
inscrutable to many, though the more romantic among 
the women deemed it conventionally suitable, as a farewell 
glance proper to the drama of marrying and giving in 
marriage. But two men in that assemblage, both observers 
of humankind, both genuinely caring for Dee in diverse 
ways, read that look and were secretly disturbed. 

The rector caught his cue and swung into his part with 
all the empressement due to a highly fashionable occasion, 
the ceremony proceeded, its gross symbolism of sex wor¬ 
ship, broad paganism, and underlying acceptance of 

women’s slavery as a divine system, thinly cloaked in the 

200 


FLAMING YOUTH 201 

severe beauty of the words; and Dee Fentriss was Mrs. 
T. Jameson James. 

Returned to her father’s house for the post-ceremonial 
festivities, Dee admitted Pat to her room where the last 
packing was going on, and was caught in a swift, hard 
hug. 

“Oh, Dee! You looked lovely.” 

“Did IP” said the bride indifferently. 

ou surely did. Where are you going on your trip?” 

“Secret. Washington first, if you want to know.” 

Pat lowered her voice though there was no one else in 
the room. “Dee, aren’t you scared?” 

“Of course not. Don’t be an idiot!” 

“I’d be. No; I don’t know as I would either, if I was 
crazy about the man.” Pat, thinking aloud, did not see 
her sister wince. “I’d be too curious about—about what 
came next. You’ll tell me, won’t you. Dee? Every- 
thingr 

The bride laughed not over-mirthfully. “Wait till 
you’re older, Infant. Though I believe that’s what they 
always say and I don’t know why they should. Had a 
good time?” 

“The most priceless time!” 

“That’s right. I wish I could always be at the top of 
the heap, as you are.” 

“Sometimes I’m at the bottom. I’ll have a poisonous 
grouch after this.” 

“Will you? You’re a queer kid. By the way, do you 
know that Mark Denby is quite nuts over you?” 

Denby was best man, an attractive but not highly intel¬ 
ligent Baltimorean. Pat shrugged her shoulders affect¬ 
edly to hide her satisfaction. “He’s all right in his way.” 

“Be nice to him to-night, will you? You haven’t shown 
him much.” 


202 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Low speed,” remarked Pat. 

“I wouldn’t think Cary Scott was specially high speed, 
though he’s a dear. You’ve been playing round with him 
quite a bit.” 

“Well, that can’t hurt me, can it?” said Pat, a little 
impatiently, as one suspicious of criticism. 

No such notion was in the mind of Dee, who answered 
promptly: “No. Best thing in the world for you, I’d say. 
But do give Mark a run for his money this evening.” 

“Oh, very well! I don’t have to marry the bird, do I?” 

Dee laughed. “You might do worse. He’s got lots of 
money and you could manage him like a lamb.” 

“I don’t want a lamb. I don’t want anything yet but 
to have a good time.” 

“Shoot along and have it, then.” 

Thus it was that Cary Scott was mulcted of several 
expected dances with no other explanation than a whis¬ 
pered “I’ll tell you why later,” which, however, left him 
not ill-content. Just before the bridal couple left he got 
his first private word with the busy maid-of-honour. They 
stood together on the tile of the loggia, now a bower of 
greenery and a narrow thoroughfare for the guests going 
outside to smoke. Pat’s first words were: 

“Oh, Carv; did you see Dee’s face?” 

“Y es.” He did not need to ask her when. 

<f What did it mean?” 

“I don’t know. Nothing probably.” 

“You know it did!’’ Her confidence in his understand¬ 
ing, her appeal to him in this, the most intimate of family 
matters, thrilled him with a new sense of their rapproche¬ 
ment, was stronger testimony to his claim upon her inner 
self than a thousand kisses. “You’re fond of Dee, aren’t 
you?” she pursued. 

“I’d be fond of her anyway, aside from her being your 


FLAMING YOUTH 203 

sister and the person closest to you in the world. She 
is, isn’t she?” 

“But she doesn’t know as much about me as you do,” 
murmured Pat. “In some ways she does, though. After 
all, you’re only a man. . . . But Dee’s a wonder, isn’t 
she?” 

“She is a fine and high personality.” 

The jealous coquette in Pat asserted itself. “Finely 
than I am?” 

“Much.” His answer was grave and sincere. Pat 
made a little face at him. 

“I don’t think it’s nice of you to think anyone is nicer 
than I am.” 

“I love you, Pat.” She quivered a little with delight 
of the words. “It would make no difference if another 
woman were as far above you in character as the stars 
are above the earth; it would still be you and no one else 
in the world for me. Is it enough? Or do you want rather 
to be flattered?” 

“No,” she breathed softly. “I want you to—love me.” 
There was the faint hesitancy over the committing word 
which she always evinced. “Just your own way. But 

Dee-Oh, Bobs!” she exclaimed as the doctor entered 

the place. “Come here.” 

“Hello, Bambina. Ah, Cary.” Osterhout’s face was 
moody. 

“What’s on your mind?” demanded Pat. “You loolc 
grouchy as a bear.” 

“Nothing,” he disclaimed. 

“Did you notice Dee, in church?” 

Osterhout’s heavy gaze lifted to study Pat’s face, then 
passed to that of Scott. “Did you see it, too?” he mut¬ 
tered. 

“Bobs, what was she looking for?” 



204 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“What could she have been looking for?” he fenced. 

“It was so helpless, so hopeless,” went on the girl; 
“and jet as if she had one hope left and weren’t going 
to give up without—without looking.” 

Osterhout had his own private interpretation of that 
last, long quest of the bride’s eyes before she turned them 
to her bridegroom, but he was not going to betray it. 
“All of us are a little high-strung,” he opined. “Imagin¬ 
ing a vain thing. Dee’s all right.” 

He passed on his way. As if by thought transference 
there flashed into Scott’s mind the strange passage be¬ 
tween Dee and the electrical repair man, Lis old acquaint¬ 
ance, Stanley Wollaston, at the famous Dangerfield “swim 
an naturel,” and the memory of her possessed, dream- 
haunted face. Could T. Jameson James ever evoke that 
yearning? Scott knew that he could not, and a great 
pity for Dee filled him. 

Pat left him, not to return until the party was dis¬ 
persed, all but a few heavy-drinking remnants who had 
stood by to help Ralph Fentriss finish up the punch. 
Later Pat and Cary passed them on their way to the 
clematis arbour. The girl’s face was sombre and 
thoughtful. 

“I wish she hadn’t married him,” she burst out. 

Scott sought to reassure her. “It’s all right, dear¬ 
est. As Osterhout said, we’re all emotionally stirred 
up——” 

“I wish she hadn’t,” persisted the girl. “It must be 
terrible to go away—like that—with a man—when you 
don’t love him!” 

“Oh, nonsense!” He strove for a light tone. “She 
does love him. Otherwise why on earth should she have 
married him?” 

Pat’s brows were knit, her gaze far away, fixed upon 



FLAMING YOUTH 205 

visions. “I wish it was us,” she murmured. “You and I. 
Going away. To-night. Together.” 

“My God! Pat!” 

“I do. I wish there weren’t any laws. I hate laws.” 

The terrible, fiery desire seized him to claim her then 
and there, to bid her leave everything for love and go 
with him to the ends of the earth, to overwhelm her with 
the force of his desire; to make her believe that with him 
she would know a happiness greater, fuller, more real than 
anything in her petty and tinselled prospect of life; seized 
and scorched and convulsed him, until she felt, through 
the hand which she had let fall upon his arm, the tremors 
shake his strong frame; felt them and exulted, through 
her woman’s dim alarms. 

“No!” he said hoarsely, in a voice which told how spent 
he was by the struggle against himself. “Not that, Pat. 
Not for you. I’d give the soul out of my body to take 
you away with me. You know that, don’t you?” 

“Yes,” she assented. She was daunted by the depths 
of passion which she had evoked. But only for the 
moment. The reaction brought back to her her hoydenish 
flippancy. “You don’t for a minute think I’d go, do you? 
I was only wishing!” 

“For God’s sake, don’t wish!” 

“I do wish there weren’t any laws. There ought to be 
a world where we could go when we’re tired of this one, 
where laws and rules and things don’t count, and we 
could come back when—when things got too hectic there.” 

“Fools think there is, and go there. But they don’t 
come back.” 

“Let’s pretend that there is such a world,” she besought 
childishly, “and that we can go there whenever we want 
to. There you could kiss me as much as you liked whether 



206 


FLAMING YOUTH 


people were around or not. . . . There’s nobody aronnd 
right now in this world, Cary. . . . 

“I’ve got to go in,” she sighed at last. “And I don’t 
want to at all. Tell me good-night.” 

His last kiss was very tender, very gentle, long and 
almost passionless. “That’s good-bye, my darling,” he 
said. 

“I don’t want it to be good-bye.” She stretched out 
her arms to him. “Oh, I do wish it was us!” 

He took her hands, pressed them to his hot eyes and 
released them. “Good-night, Pat. Go in. Please!” 

“I will,” she acquiesced, obedient for once before the 
pain in his voice. “But you’re driving me over to-morrow, 
aren’t you?” 

“To-morrow is another day,” he said. 

Almost was Pat convinced on the morning following 
that she had made a mistake in commandeering Scott and 
his car for the trip. The train would have been far 
quicker and possibly more amusing. For Scott was unac¬ 
countably silent all the early part of the drive. Having 
arrayed herself with much selective thought for the occa¬ 
sion, and being conscious of her charm as set forth by a 
gown that clung to her budding form, and a tight little, 
bright little hat prisoning her dusky, mutinous hair, Pat 
resented the lack of attention she was receiving and 
thought proper to “jolly” her companion into a more 
fitting frame of mind. She elicited little response in kind. 

“You’re about as gay as a hearse this morning,” she 
observed with annoyance as the car swung aside from the 
main highway to a more sparsely travelled back road. 
“This isn’t anybody’s funeral that I know. Where are 
we going, anyway?” 

“By a route I like to take when I’ve plenty of time. 


FLAMING YOUTH 


207 


We’ll reach the Maple Swamp in time for luncheon. I’ve 
packed a hamper. I’m sorry if I’m dull, dear.” 

ou’re quiet. I don’t know that you’re dull, exactly. 
I don’t quite see you ever being dull. But I don’t want 
to be quiet to-day. It gives me too much time to think. 
And thinking’s the very thing I want the least of right 
now. I just want to be happy—because I’m with you. 
There’s nothing to be solemn about, is there?” - 

“Nothing!” he agreed. But though he talked with his 
usual charm thereafter, she was resentfully conscious of 
the effort it cost him. 

Arrived at the luncheon place he ran the car up beside 
a stone wall enclosing a coppice which was all ablaze with 
the last, defiant splendour of the year. Autumn was 
going down with all colours flying. Pat snuffed the keen 
scented air with nostrils that quivered. 

“Oof!” she cried. “I’m ravenous. What a spiffy 
luncheon! Coffee? Hold out your cup. When and 
where shall we lunch together next time, I wonder? Isn’t 
there an old song or something, ‘When Shall We Two Eat 
Again?’ Oh, no; it’s ‘When Shall We Three Meet Again?” 
I’m glad there aren’t three of us here; aren’t you?” she 
chattered on. “You don’t look glad about anything. 
What are you thinking about so hard?” 

“Only that we aren’t likely to see each other for some 
time.” 

“Some time?” Her face showed alarm and suspicion. 
“You’re not going to see me any more at all,” she accused. 
“Is that it?” 

He smiled wanly. “Hardly as bad as that.” 

“When, then ?” 

“How can I tell? Business-” 

“Business!” she echoed scornfully. “You’re going 
away—from me.” 



208 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“For a while.” 

“Why?” she demanded, “when I need you so much?” 

“No. You don’t really need me.” 

“When I want you, then?” she said imperiously. 

“Isn’t that just a little selfish of you?” 

“Of course it is. Have I ever pretended to be anything 
else? I always get what I want if I can, and I never give 
up anything I want without trying for it. Why should I?” 

“An unanswerable proposition,” he made reply, with 
his subtly ironic smile. “But the tide never runs all one 
way; I’m afraid that you’ve got some harsh disillusion- 
ments in prospect.” 

“I don’t care. If I have to pay, I’ll pay.” 

“It may hurt.” 

“Let it! I’m not afraid.” 

“Because you’ve never been hurt. If I were a praying 
man I’d pray that you never may be. But that’s foolish 
of course. Life will hurt you. It hurts all of us.” 

“Has it hurt you, Cary?” 

/ “It is hurting me now—a little. Not more than I 
deserve.” 

“Why do you deserve? You couldn’t help liking”— 
he smiled—“being in love with me, could you?” 

“I could have helped making love to you.” 

She had a superb gesture. “Could you, though! When 
I wanted you to? What harm has it done?” 

“So long as it hasn’t harmed you-” 

“It’s helped me. That’s w r hy I can’t bear to think of 
your going. I’m going to miss you so terribly !” There 
followed the little, slighting, boyish, devil-may-care hunch 
of the shoulders. “Not for long, though. I never do. I 
go crazy over someone and think he’s the whole thing and 
I can’t see anything in the world without him, and then, 
pouf! It’s all over.” 



iXiAiviiiNluuin a 

“So may it be with you now.” 

“You want it to be?” 

“I don’t want you to have the pain of missing me as 
shall miss you. But I’m afraid you’re going to feel 
more than you think.” 

“Boasting!” she retorted, but there was no convictii 
in the word. 

“No; I’m not boasting. But I’ve given you somethin 
Pat, that you haven’t had from your minor flirtatioi 
Much that you won’t readily forget. Nor do I want y< 
to forget it all. But—I want it to drop into the bac 
ground for you.” 

“Background? I don’t understand.” 

“When the real man for you comes along into the fo] 
ground of your life-” 

“You want me to compare him with you?” she bro 
in quickly. 

“Perhaps that wouldn’t be quite fair to him. I’ve h 
more opportunities, more experience of the w T orld th 
your younger lovers are likely to have had; you cai 
expect quite so much of youth in some ways. But befc 
you commit yourself finally, suppose you ask yours 
whether you care for the man more than you have at a 
time for me; if, in case you married him, you would m 
out of your life together certain phases that we hf 
known.” 

“But of course I shall!” she cried. “What boy d< 
know that could understand me as you do?” 

Upon the naive egotism of this he made no comme 
“I haven’t made myself quite clear. Before you deci 
go back to our association, go back to all the associate 
you have had hitherto, and ask if the new one will take ' 
place of all of them. If not—don’t.” 



LO 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“You’re trying to keep me from marrying someone else 
?eause you can’t have me, yourself,” she accused. 

“Do you think that of me, Pat?” 

“Oh, no; no! I don’t. You know I don’t. What makes 
e so hateful?” She threw herself upon him, pressed her 
ice close to his, turned so that their lips met; then drew 
ick with a questioning look in her eyes. “That was a 
?ry white kiss,” she murmured discontentedly. “You’re 
) strange to-dav.” 

“There’s more, Pat. It isn’t so easy to say.” 

Her intuition leapt to meet his thought. “It’s about 
lis.” She touched her cheek to his again. “With other 
len. I won’t, if you don’t want me to.” 

“I can’t claim any promises from you. You wouldn’t 
eep them anyway.” 

“I would” was the instant and indignant response. 
No; probably I wouldn’t,” she amended, her voice trail- 
ig off, “after you’d been away from me for a while. But 
hat’s the harm, Cary?” 

“I’ve told you; it’s dangerous.” 

“And I’ve told you; it’s not, for me. Suppose I’m in 
>ve with the man. Must I act like an icicle?” 

“Ah, that is a different matter. If you’re really in 
>ve.” 

“But how am I to tell whether I am or not without 
;tting him make love to me?” 

The naive logic of it left Scott without adequate 
nswer. After all, these direct contacts were the very 
ssence and experiment of mating, the empiric method 
hich inexorable Nature prescribes. Had the modern flap- 
»er, with her daring contempt of what older generations 
onsidered the proprieties if not the normal decencies of 
ocial intercourse, only reverted to a simpler, more natu- 
al method? Of course, carrying the scheme a little fur- 




FLAMING YOUTH 211 

ther, there were obvious arguments against it, arguments 
which he did not care to advance to Pat. 

“Only be certain,” he said after a pause, “that it isn’t 
merelv a casual fascination.” 

V 

“You know I’m past being an easy necker,” she replied 
with a touch of self-righteous reproach. 

“I know that you are of a sensuous temperament-” 

“Oh, I hate that word!” 

“I didn’t say ‘sensual,’ my dear. I said Sensuous.’ 
You are one of those fortunate people who are vividly 
alive to all impressions of the senses. But with you, the 
sensuous beauty of life is linked up with imagination. 
That is why physical attraction alone won’t suffice for 
you in the long run; sooner or later your mind is going 
to awaken and demand the things of the mind.” 

The morbid look of introspection darkened down over 
her face. “You talk as if I had a mind. I’m an awful 
fool. You make mei forget it when I’m with you-” 

“Because it isn’t true. You’re a woefully uneducated, 
untrained, undisciplined child. But you have the hunger 
of the mind, the discontent. Just now your senses are 
hungry” (she winced and flushed) “and so you don’t feel 
the deeper hunger. You will in time. It is for that time 
that I am anxious. The time of the Second Dreaming.” 

“Tell me,” she begged. 

“The First Dreaming for you,” he prophesied, “will be 
passionate and romantic. You may be carried away by 
mere physical beauty or superficial charm. I have known 
women of your type marry their chauffeurs or elope with 
gypsy fiddlers.” 

Pat gave a tiny snort of disdain. 

“Probably you are fastidious enough to escape that 
extreme. But unless the man you choose can satisfy what 
is deepest in you, you will awake from that First Dream- 




212 


FLAMING YOUTH 


ing to an empty world. And afterward, unless you have 
found something to satisfy your craving mind, will come 
the danger and the seductiveness of the Second Dreaming.” 

“Will you come back then?” she challenged. 

“I shall be a middle-aged man then; though I suppose 
you regard me as that now.” He forced a wry smile. 
“No; I shall never come back, in the way that you mean.” 

“I’ll make you,” she laughed. “Unless you’ve stopped 
caring.” 

“I shall never stop caring.” 

“If I get engaged shall I bring him to you? And if 
you say not, I won’t marry him.” 

Scott’s face contracted. “No; my dear. I don’t think 
I could quite endure being put in that position.” 

“I don’t suppose I’ll ever understand about you,” she 
sighed. “We ought to be going on, oughtn’t we?” 

She looked at him expectantly, but he only set about 
packing the things into the hamper. 

It was her turn to be thoughtful and silent when they 
re-embarked in the car. As they neared the city, she said 
suddenly, “Come to the Parmenters’ this evening.” 

“I think not, Pat.” 

“Your voice sounds hard as iron. Why not?” 

“I don’t think it’s wise.” 

She affected not to understand him. “They’ll all be 
out. Cissie told me so.” 

“We said our good-byes last night. I don’t think I 
could stand it again.” 

A long silence followed. 

“I wish I’d never teased you,” said the girl. “I wish 
there was nothing between us that I had to be sorry for— 
things that I’ve done to hurt you, I mean.” 

“They are nothing, compared to the sweetness and 


FLAMING YOUTH 


213 


magic of it,” he said. “Don’t let yourself think of what 
doesn’t matter.” 

“Yes; that’s like you.” She went on with down-drawn 
brow T s and face darkened in thought: “Whatever happens 
don’t ever think that this hasn’t been the best tiling I’ve 
ever known in my life. When I’ve been crazy over men 
before I’ve never had a thought for anyone but myself. . . . 
I wish there was something, anything that I could do for 
you, dear,” she concluded with passionate wistfulness. 

“There is. Be yourself; the real self that you are 


now. 


99 


“I’ll try. Oh, I will try! But it’s so hard with you 
gone.” 

At the door of the Parmenter house she did not raise 
her eyes to his, but her strong young hand clung within 
his fingers in a fluttering clasp. 

“Good-bye, Cary, dear.” 

“God keep you, my darling.” 

She had to grope her way in past the astonished maid 
who opened the door. 


CHAPTER XX 


“Wisdom may be where you are, dear and lost one.** So 
wrote Robert Osterhout, seated in Mona Fentriss’s sun- 
rimpregnated room, which seemed still to be fragrant of 
*her personality. “Certainly it is not here. All of us had 
the sorriest misgivings over Dee’s marriage, and behold, 
it has turned out better than most matrimonial arrange¬ 
ments of this ill-assorted world. They have been married 
for nearly six months and all goes as smooth as machinery. 
One could not say that Dee is rapturous; but she is not a 
rapturous person. She seems to run evenly in double 
harness with James and makes an admirable mistress for 
his establishment. I wish I could really like James. If he 
makes Dee happy I shall have to like him. But he is so 
infernally self-content. And equally content with Dee, 
evidently considering her a part and portion of himself. 
Absorptive—that is what Jameson James is. 

“I should have been equally skeptical of Pat’s manage¬ 
ment of Holiday Knoll. Another instance of the falli¬ 
bility of human judgments, for she runs the place excel¬ 
lently, as even Ralph, who prophesied a hurrah’s nest 
from which he would have to take refuge at the club, now 
admits. I dare say the bills are something to shudder at. 

“Connie also has a new occupation: another baby com- 
ing. At first she was querulous; now she is quite taken 
up with the idea. And the extraordinary Pat has seized 
upon this to bring Connie and Fred together again. Fred 
is cutting down on the bottle and showing interest in 
business. Connie has quit her nonsense with Emslie Self¬ 
ridge ; it was only a make-shift, stop-gap sort of flirtation, 

214 



FLAMING YOUTH 


215 


anyway; the marriage may yet be a success. If it is, 
credit to Pat. But imagine the Bambina becoming the 
managing director of the family, the schemer for happi¬ 
ness, the adjuster of difficulties. She bosses Ralph within 
an inch of his life. All of this does not seem to interfere 
with her raids upon the male portion of the community, 
who clutter up the place largely. 

“Cary Scott has quit us. Why, I do not know. Can it 
be that he was seriously interested in Dee? There is no 
doubt of her strong liking for him, but I would have sworn 
that it was quite unsentimental. Possibly his feeling was 
deeper; the abrupt cure of his infatuation for Connie has 
never been clear to me. In any case, I miss him. He has 
brains and charm and, I think, character. Atmosphere, 
too, which the men of our lot lack. I’ve had a letter or 
two from him from California. Through a friend who 
lives in Paris I have heard about his marriage, too. His 
wife is of the leech type, a handsome, heartless, useless, 
shrewd beast who hates him because he revolted against 
her taking everything and giving nothing, and who will 
never, out of sheer spite, give him his divorce. They say 
he has amused himself widely; yet he retains a reputation 
for decency even in the more rigid circles of the foreign 
community there. 

“That queer little mystery of Pat’s mind-reading of 
which I wrote vou, remains unsolved. I have tried to 
catch her napping on it; made careless mention of having 
talked with her before about marrying a man of thirty. 
But she is not to be trapped; maintains an obstinate 
reserve. It is too much for me. She is developing fast, 
but into what I cannot say. Conscious, conquering 
womanhood, I should say; yet she is still so much the 
simple, willful child with it all. What I fear for her is 
the difficulty of adjustment to life when she meets with 


216 


FLAMING YOUTH 


the severer problems. She is so uneven. Too much back¬ 
ground and no foreground; the background of tradition, 
habit, breeding, les convenances (which she recklessly 
overrides yet always with a sense of what they imply), 
the divine right of being what she is, a Fentriss, and the 
lack of what should fill in, training, achievement, disci¬ 
pline, purpose, any real underlying interest in life. Cary 
Scott was, I believe, giving her something along that line; 
the more reason for regretting his defection. . . . Pat 
declares that she will keep a vacant place for him at the 
family dinner party which she is projecting for next 
week.” 

The dinner party was designed by Pat, to convince the 
Fentrisses, one and all, of her competence to run the 
house. “Mid-Victorian stuff,” Fred Browning called it, 
but he announced himself as for it, as did also Dee James, 
while her husband was graciously acquiescent. Ralph 
Fentriss was humorously obedient to any whim of his 
youngest daughter’s, while Connie was delighted with the 
idea. Osterhout was of course included, as was Linda 
Fentriss, bird of passage between winter sports in the 
Adirondacks and a yachting trip in Florida waters. 

The gastronomic part of the dinner was a marked 
success, aided by a contribution of three bottles of cham¬ 
pagne from the private and dwindling cellar of the head 
of the family. Pie summed up the verdict after his second 
glass in a toast proposed and responded to by himself: 

“We Fentrisses! We’re a damned sight better com¬ 
pany for ourselves than most of the people we associate 
with.” 

To which satisfying sentiment there was emphatic re¬ 
sponse, participated in by Robert Osterhout. It struck 
him, however, that if there were any exception on this 
occasion, it was the second daughter, who alternated 


FLAMING YOUTH 


217 


between long silences and fits of febrile gaiety quite 
unlike her usual insouciant good humour. He thought 
that he caught a look of relief on her face when the men 
retired to the loggia with their cigars, since the new 
household tyrant had ruled against anything but cigar¬ 
ettes in the other parts of the house. The women took 
possession of the library and Pat established herself be¬ 
side Dee, who sat on the lounge near the half-open door 
leading into the loggia. 

“Who’s the angel-faced athlete I saw you skating with 
last Saturday, Mary Delia Fentriss James?” was Pat’s 
opening remark. 

“Saturday? Where were you?” 

“On the bank in my runabout. You were some con¬ 
spicuous pair! He’s as good as you are, almost.” 

“Were we so good?” said Dee, coolly. 

“Meaning that you don’t choose to tell.” 

“Wrong guess. His name is Wollaston.” 

“Not in my Social Register.” 

“A few people manage to exist without being.” 

“Don’t be catty, pettah!” 

“Don’t be an imbecile, baba!” 

“All right. I’m off’n him as a subject for airy persi¬ 
flage. But I will say that he’s a wonderful looking bird 
—for a skating instructor.” 

Dee laughed. “You didn’t expect to get a rise out of 
me that way, did you?” But there was a harsh quality in 
her mirth which made Pat thoughtful. 

“When are you going South?” she asked. 

“I don’t want to go till the first. T. Jameson wants 
to go next week. We’ll probably go next week.” 

“Like that!” commented Pat. “But why be bitter about 
a jaunt to the Sunny? I wish it was me. . . . Give ear: 
what’s old Bobs growling about?” 


218 


FLAMING YOUTH 


The heavy voice of Dr, Osterhout penetrated to them, 
“All very well for the club. But I wouldn’t have the swine 
in my house.” 

To which Ralph Fentriss’s musical and tolerant tones 
replied: “Oh, you can’t judge a man solely on the basis of 
his business, can you, now?” 

“If his business is that of a panderer, I can.” 

“Rough talk,” murmured Pat to Dee. “Who’s the 
accused?” 

“Because Peter Waddington’s newspaper,” put in 
Browning, “has violated some technical rule of the medi¬ 
cal profession-” 

“Technical nothing! It isn’t technicality. It’s ordi¬ 
nary law and order and decency. Look at that column. 
Abortionists, every one of ’em.” 

“Oh, myo-my!” whispered Pat, vastly enjoying this, 
“They’re waxing wroth.” 

“A very useful contribution to the social system,” said 
Jameson James in his precise enunciation, with a lift 
obviously intended to be humorous. 

“I always understood that those fellows didn’t deliver; 
the goods,” remarked Fred Browning carelessly. 

“Whether they do or not,” retorted Osterhout, “has 
nothing to do with the question. That thing”—he snapped 
his finger against the offending print—“is an invitation to 
commit murder. But aside from that feature, if you men 
think that sort of stuff is decent to have lying around a 
house where there is a young girl-” 

“Oh, Pat would never think of looking at it,” said her 
father easily. “If she did she wouldn’t know what it 
meant. It’s veiled.” 

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” remarked Browning. 
“Pat’s a wise kid. Not much gets past her, nor any of 
the girls of her age for that matter.” 




FLAMING YOUTH 


219 


“You make me sick, all of you,” vociferated Osterhout. 
“You wouldn’t talk about these things before young girls, 
yet you’d admit the stuff in this form. I’ll see that this 
specimen doesn’t befoul anyone’s eyes.” There was the 
rustle of a newspaper being violently crumpled. “Where’s 
the damned waste-basket?” 

“Chuck it in the wood-box and forget it. Have a 
drink,” advised Browning. 

Her quick and prurient curiosity stimulated, Pat made 
instant resolution to retrieve that newspaper and see for 
herself later how ‘they did these things. Presently the 
men came in and joined the group in the library. Pat 
sang for them to'her father’s accompaniment, also to his 
delighted surprise, for, with his natural taste he appre¬ 
ciated the genuine quality of the voice. Then there was 
poker, family limit, meaning fifty cents. At midnight Dee 
called for a round of roodles, declaring that she was tired 
out. She had previously announced her intention of 
spending the night at the Knoll, as James was taking an 
early morning train to attend a sale at which he expected 
to pick up some polo ponies. 

Pat, going upstairs last, as befitted the chatelaine, 
heard Dee moving about in the bathroom, and went to her 
own room to wait. When all was quiet she slipped on a 
dressing gown and tiptoed downstairs to rifle the wood- 
box of its denounced print. There was a single light on 
in the loggia. Astonished, Pat crept to a viewpoint and 
peeped in. 

Dee, with an intent and haunted face, was smoothing 
out the newspaper upon her knee. 


CHAPTER XXI 


Before she was fully awake next morning Pat had come 
to a daring resolution. To prepare her way she got up, 
went to the loggia, and looked in the w ood-box. No news¬ 
paper was there. The maids had not yet made their 
rounds; therefore Dee must have taken it up with her. 
Dee did not appear at breakfast, but at ten o’clock she 
came down. Her face was weary and apathetic; her lithe 
body seemed to have lost something of its poise. Sorely 
compassionate and thrilling to the sense of secret and 
adventurous matters Pat seized upon the first chance of 
speaking to her alone. 

“Dee, did you take a newspaper from the wood-box?” 

Dee’s expression was inscrutable. “Yes.” 

“The one Bobs was grouching about? I wanted to 
see it.” 

“You!” The exclamation was pregnant with astonish¬ 
ment and dismay. It crystallised Pat’s suspicion as to 
Dee’s motive in taking the paper. The older woman rose 
slowly, walked across the room and stared down into the 
thoughtful face of the younger. “What do you want 
that for?” 

“Just cussed curiosity.” 

“Bobs is a nut,” said Dee listlessly. “There’s nothing 
in that paper. I tore it up.” 

“Dee, are you that way?” 

“None of your business.” 

“Con told me when she was.” 

“Con’s a cow.” 

“She’s tickled pink. I should think you’d be.” 

220 


FLAMING YOUTH 22X 

“Oh, would you!” Dee’s self-control broke. Her face 
worked spasmodically. “I’d kill myself first.” 

The badinage faded from Pat’s lips. “That doesn’t 
sound like you, Dee. I’d think you’d be a sport about it 
anyway.” 

“Pat, I can’t have a baby.” 

“Rats! You’re as strong as an ox.” 

“It isn’t that. I’m not afraid that way.” 

“What else is there to be afraid of?” 

“It isn’t fear. It’s—it’s disgust.” 

“Disgust?” Pat stared. “I don’t get you.” 

“Pat, listen to me,” burst out the sister, her hands 
twitching, one over the other in a nervous spasm. “What¬ 
ever you do, when the time 6omes however much it may 
seem the thing to do at the time, don’t, don’t, don't marry 
a man, you aren’t in love with. It’s a thing to make you 
sick of yourself every day of your life.” 

“Dee!” 

“It is. I’ll never talk to you like this again. But I 
tell you now; do anything, take any chance but that.” 

Pat’s voice was hushed as she asked: “Do you hate 
Jimmie-James so much?” 

“Not as much as I hate myself. But I’ve got cause 
against him. He hasn’t kept to his bargain. He hasn’t 
been on the level.” 

Pat’s eyes widened. “You’ll never make me believe 
that the correct and careful T. Jameson has been straying 
off the reservation.” 

“I wish to God he would! It isn’t that. It’s worse— 
for me. I oughtn’t to be spilling this to you, Pat.” 

“Oh, go ahead! Get it off your chest.” 

“I married Jim under a private agreement. We were 
to live together for a month, and after that if either of 
us wanted to quit we were to just say so and stop being 


222 


FLAMING YOUTH 


husband and wife without any legal separation or any fuse 
of that sort. The house is big enough for two separate 
lives.” 

“No house is,” denied the sapient Pat. “I don’t know 
much about marriage, but I know that much. It’s a fool 
arrangement.” 

“I thought it would be a clever sort of trial marriage. 
Trial marriage”—Dee gave a short and bitter laugh— 
“doesn’t work out so well after the ceremony. If a girl 
is going to experiment, she might better make her experi¬ 
ments before- Oh, damn it, Pat! I don’t mean it. I 

think I’ve gone crazy mooning over this thing.” 

“What was wrong? Wouldn’t Jimmie keep to his part 
of the agreement?” 

“No.” 

“Bum sport,” pronounced Pat. “And he knew you 
wanted to quit?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why?” 

Dee’s body writhed under its loose covering. “I can’t 
explain.” 

“Has it got something to do with—with the other 
man ?” 

“What other man?” 

It was not like direct Dee to fence, Pat reflected.. She 
persisted: “The one you told me about.” 

“I never told you about any man.” 

“Oh, well! You talked about that thrill stuff-” 

“Don’t!” gasped Dee. 

“Pm sorry,” said Pat in swift contrition. “Is it as bad 
as that? Then I suppose it is the angel-face on skates.” 

The hard lines melted out of Dee’s face. “Yes,” she 
whispered. She seemed to find relief in the admission. 




FLAMING YOUTH 22; 

Pat took her courage in her hands. “Dee, is it hi 
baby?” 

“If it were, I’d want to have it,” was the low, vehemenl 
response. “I’d be proud to have it.” 

For the moment Pat was awed. Passion she under¬ 
stood well enough; but not in this degree. She gathered 
her forces again. 

“Is it Jimmie’s, then?” 

“Yes; it’s Jim’s.” 

% 

“You say that,” marvelled Pat, “as if you were ashamed 
of it.” 

“I am. God knows I am!” She bowed her proudly set 
head in her hands and rocked it to and fro. “Pat, there’s 
nothing so rotten and shameful in the world as marrying 
a man you don’t love.” 

“You didn’t have to,” said Pat, gaping. “What did 
you do it for?” 

“The usual thing:? convenience. And because I was 
afraid of making a fool of myself by—with someone else. 

It couldn’t come to anything, the other thing. So I got 
reckless and took Jim. It wasn’t a fool that I made of 
myself; it was something worse. Shall I tell you?” 

“No. Don’t think it. You did the right thing.” 

“Of course! As we figure it out. And I’ve paid for it. 
But I won’t pay for it this way. I won’t! I won’t!” 

“I would,” said Pat slowly. “If I went into it I’d go 
through with it. You’ve got to be fair to Jimmie. Does 
he know?” 

The smile called forth by the query disfigured Dee’s 
mouth. “No. And he never will know, what’s more.” 

“You’re going to get out of it? You’re going to on< 
of those people in the newspaper?” 

“Yes” 

“Isn’t it terribly dangerous?” 


224 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“What do I care if it is ?” 

“Dee, why don’t you go to Bobs?” 

“Bobs?” She hesitated. “I couldn’t go to Bobs. He 
wouldn’t help me out anyway. Doctors aren’t allowed to.” 

“He’d do anything in the world for you, Dee.” 

“If he would, that’s all the more reason why I couldn’t 
go to him with this,” muttered Dee obscurely. 

Pat had an inspiration. “I could. I’ll tell him. I’ll 
tell him the whole thing. Except about Angel-face, of 
course. I’ll tell him he’s just got to get you out of it. 
Let me, Dee.” 

“Oh, go ahead! I don’t care. I don’t care about 
anything. I wish I were dead.” 

“Don’t be an ass. We’ll fix it.” Pat was exuberant 
with the sense of great and delicate affairs in her hands. 
“I’ll go right now and tackle him. If he sends for you 
will you come?” 

“Yes,” agreed Dee listlessly. “You’re a good little 
sport, Pat,” she added. 

The response was curt and unexpected: “Are you?” 

“For not going through with it, you mean?” 

“Yes. On Jimmie’s account. It’s as much his as 
yours.” 

“Is it!” Bitter laughter followed. “He’s no right to 
it. Pie’s no right to me” 

“Why didn’t you quit him, then? I would have. In a 
minute.” 

“I couldn’t. You don’t know.” 

“You could have come home. Of course there’d have 
been a stink-up, but-” 

“I wouldn’t have cared. I’d have done anything to get 
away from him. But he found out—about Stanley.” 

“Stanley? Oh, Angel-face! Dee, had you?” 

“No; no! There was never any question of that 



FLAMING YOUTH 225 

between us,” she said moodily. “I did meet him, though, 
[t was accidental at first, for I never meant to see him 
again after I married Jim. After that we met once in a 
while, for walks and in places like the skating rink. That 
was all there was to it, but Jim found it out and used it to 
blackmail me and hold me to the marriage. White slave 
stuff, on the respectable side! But Bobs won’t do any¬ 
thing,” she added dully. “You’ll see.” 

Pat caught her in a sudden, reassuring hug. “Leave 
it to me,” was her commonplace but confident rejoinder 
to this baring of a woman’s self-wrought and therefore 
doubly grim tragedy. 

Having carefully rehearsed her form of attack upon 
the family physician Pat went to his bungalow. 

“Why the face so solemn, Infant?” he greeted her. 

“I’ve got something serious to say to you, Bobs.” 

“What devilment have you been up to now?” 

“It isn’t me,” returned Pat, with her usual superiority 
to the laws of grammar. “It’s Dee.” 

“Hello!” His expression changed. “Anything wrong?” 

“Y es. She’s going to have a baby.” 

“Dee,” he murmured, “a mother.” He lost himself in 
musing, seeming to forget Pat’s presence. 

“But she doesn’t want to be a mother.” 

“Eh?” Osterhout quite jumped, startled by the empha¬ 
sis which Pat gave to the assertion. “Oh! That’s unim¬ 
portant. They often don’t in the early stages.” 

“Dee never will. Never! Never!” 

The physician smiled tolerantly. 

“And you’ve got to help her out of it.” 

“I?” The scandalised amazement in his expression 
tempted Pat to mirth, but she restrained herself. “Help 
her out! In what way, may I ask?” 

“You needn’t may-I-ask in that hateful tone. You 


226 FLAMING YOUTH 

know perfectly well. Doctors do those things, don’t 
they?” 

“Oh, certainly! By all means. It’s the backbone and 
mainstay of the profession.” 

“Now you’re being sarcastic. And it’s terribly serious.” 

“You go back to Dee and tell her not to be a damned 
fool. She ought to be ashamed of herself for sending you 
on such an errand. I don’t understand it in Dee.” 

“Liar yourself, Bobs. She didn’t send me. I came. 
And”—a little breathlessly—“if you don’t do it for her 
somebody else will.” 

“Somebody else? Who?” 

“I don’t know yet. One of these people.in here.” She 
produced the newspaper page which she had extracted 
from Dee. 

Osterhout swore vividly and voluminously. “Just what 
I said! Leaving such filth about where girls can pick it 
up.” He rose, shuffled over to Pat, took her chin between 
finger and thumb and peered down into her limpid, trou¬ 
bled eyes. “What’s behind all this foolishness?” came 
the stern question. 

“Oh, Bobs! Be good and help us. She can’t have 
the baby. Truly she can’t. I mustn’t tell you why, but 
you’d say so, too, if you knew.” 

His face darkened. “What’s this? Isn’t it James’s 
child?” 

Pat was virtuously indignant,^notwithstanding that she 
had put a like query herself a few moments earlier. “Of 
course it is!” 

“Then it’s probably the very best thing that could 
happen to her.” 

“Won’t you believe me, Bobs,” Pat implored, “when I 
tell you-” 



FLAMING YOUTH 227 

“I’m going to put you out of this house in a minute if 
you don’t stop talking such trash.” 

“You won’t help her?” 

“Not by so much as stirring a finger.” 

Then Pat, offering up a silent prayer to the genius of 
histrionics, played her trump card. “Will you help—me, 
then?” 

Her eyes were cast down; that was in the role she had 
assumed; but she heard his pipe clatter to the floor, felt 
the insistence of his stare fixed upon her. 

“ Bambino ,/” It was long since he had called her by 
the old pet-name of her childhood. The realisation of 
what the reversion implied almost broke down her resolu¬ 
tion. But he instantly recovered his ’self-command; was 
wholly the physician. “Tell me about it,” he said gently. 

<{ What is there to tell more?” She threw out her arms 
in what she deemed the proper gesture. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes. Or I’d never have come to you.” 

“Who is the man?” 

Pat shook her head. She had not invented the man 
even in her own mind. 

“Tell me, Pat.” 

Her lips set firm indicating (as she had seen determina¬ 
tion “registered” on the screen) that rather would she 
die than betray her lover. 

“The damned scoundrel has got to marry you.” 

“He can’t.” 

“Why? Is he married?” 

Her head inclined slowly. She was quite pale with 
emotion now, living into her part thoroughly. 

“Then I’ll drive the dirty whelp out of town. Pat, 
you’re not going to leave this room until you tell me.” 


228 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Real old mellerdrammer stuff,” thought Pat. Sadly 

she said: 

“What’s the use, Bobs? I’ll never tell. He’d marry 
me if he could. Oh, you needn’t go guessing,” she added 
hastily. “You’ve never seen or heard of him. Word of 
honour.” 

He went over to the window and stood, staring out 
into the soft, grey drizzle of an early thaw. When he 
turned to her his face was set in a still resolution. 

“Pat, you’re absolutely certain that he can’t marry 
you ?” 

“Absolutely,” returned Pat, with the conviction of 
truth. 

“Then, will you marry me?” 

“Bobs!” She started to her feet, astounded, incredu¬ 
lous. “You’re joking.” 

“I’m in dead earnest.” 

The irrepressible coquette within her seized upon and 
dominated her. “Do you mean to say that you’re in love 
with me? With little Pat?” she crowed. 

“No.” 

“Oh!” The coquette retired, discomfited. 

“I’m offering you a marriage of safety; a marriage of 
form, only. I should never make any claim on you.” 

“I couldn’t,” she gasped, still in the grip of utter 
amazement. 

“Do you see any other way out?” he asked with grim 
patience. 

“But why should you do it?” 

“Why shouldn’t I? I’d do it for your mother’s sake 
if for no other reason. It isn’t as if I had anything else 
to do with my life. You needn’t be afraid of my ever 
bothering you; and when the time comes, we can get a 
quiet divorce.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


229 


Pat fell back into her chair, her brain still whirling. 
“No. No. No. No. No! Never in this world! I 
couldn’t even think of it.” 

“If the idea of me as a pretended husband is so repul- 
sive- 

“It isn’t. I think you’re divine. I adore you. Not 
that way, though. And I couldn’t mess things up that 
way for both of us. I’d kill myself, first.” She was win¬ 
ning back, though badly jarred, into the drama of it 
again. “Bobs, you will help me through. The—the 
other way.” 

“What! A criminal operation? Why, I couldn’t if I 
were willing. I’m no obstetrician!” 

Pat had the grace to turn red. “No. Not you, of 
course. But if you’d just send me somewhere—to one of 
the men in the paper-” 

“That would be just as bad.” 

“Then you’d rather stand by and see me ruined and 
disgraced,” she cried hotly. With a swift change to 
beseeching softness she murmured, “Mona would tell you 
to help me if she were here.” 

Again Osterhout turned to look out into the colorless 
tumult of the storm: “You’re wrong, Pat. She wouldn’t. 
She’d know me better.” 

“Then what am I going to do?” 

He prowled up and down the room like an anxious bear. 

“I don’t know. We’ll have to get you away somewhere. 
Oh, Bambina! How could you be such an infernal little 
fool? Why didn’t I look after you better?” 

“Poor old Bobs!” said she softly. “How could you 
know anything about it?” 

“One thing you absolutely must not do,” he pursued 
vigorously, “is to go to any of those scoundrelly quacks 
in the paper.” 





230 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“It’s easy enough to tell me what not to do.” 

“You’ve got to go through with it. I’ll make the 
arrangements when the time comes. Just try not to worry 
any more than you can help.” 

Pat nodded her assent and farewell. But inwardly her 
mood was anything but acquiescent. If Bobs, her trusted 
stand-by of so many years, wouldn’t help, well— Outside 
in the drizzle she drew out the newspaper and scanned the 
second legend in the discreet looking column. It gave an 
obscure address in Newark and was signed “Dr. Jelleco.” 


i 


CHAPTER XXII 


What work Osterhout was able to do in the two days 
following Pat’s revelation was mainly mechanical. Neither 
his mind nor his real interest were enlisted. Pat’s supposed 
situation absorbed both. There were so many phases to 
that problem! If only Mona were alive. That thought 
came to him with more poignancy than for a long time 
past. He would have taken Pat’s secret to her at once, 
without hesitancy. Could he take it to any other member 
of the family? Certainly not Ralph Fentriss. Nor the 
helpless Constance. Dee? He shrank from that idea with 
an invincible reluctance. Life, he more than suspected, was 
not treating Dee over-tenderly. 

He took his perplexities out into the bluster and whirl 
of a wild afternoon, and came back weary and a little 
quieted to find the subject of them stretched out on his 
divan, fast asleep. Her face, he observed pitifully, showed 
not only exhaustion but a deeper strain. He touched her 
limp hand and spoke her name softly. At once she sprang 
half erect, like a startled animal. 

“Oh, Bobs! It’s you. I’m so glad you’ve come. Pm 
afraid, Bobs.” 

“No, dear; you mustn’t let yourself be,” he soothed 
her. “There’s nothing-” 

“You don’t understand. And I’ve got to tell you. 
That’s what I’m scared about.” 

“Haven’t you told me the whole thing, Bambina?” 

“No. I’ll—I’ll tell you on the way over to Dee’s.” 

“To Dee’s?” 


231 



232 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Yes. Dee’s ill. You must come at once.” 

He caught up his hat and gloves; his overcoat he had 
not taken off. “What is it?” 

“Bobs, it’s—it’s that." 

“That? What? Can’t you speak out?” 

Out in the air she took a deep breath. “It wasn’t me at 
all that was in trouble,” she announced desperately. 

“Not you?” Stupefaction was in his voice. Gathering 
wrath superseded it as he demanded, “Is this some kind 
of an infernal joke?” 

“No. It was Dee all the time. As I told you at first.” 

“Then why in the name-” 

“You wouldn’t help her because she’s married. So I 
thought you might help me, if you thought it was me, 
because I wasn’t.” 

“An admirable little game. But I’m still not sure that 
I quite get the point of it.” His voice was so ugly that 
Pat’s shook as she said: 

“The point was to get you to tell me, if you wouldn’t 
help me yourself, about one of those men in the news¬ 
paper-” 

“Dee went to one of them?” he broke in. 

She looked up at him piteously, pleadingly. “Bobs, it 
was terrible. He was so—so ghastly business-like.” 

“What did you expect?” he returned grimly. “And 
now she’s ill?” 

“Yes.” 

“Fever?” 

“I—I think so.” 

With a barked-out oath he increased his pace. Pat, 
striding fast to keep up said: “Bobs, dear; Dee doesn’t 
know about it.” 

“About what?” 




FLAMING YOUTH 2831 

“About my pretending that I was the one. It was my 
own notion.” 

“Then you will tell her,” he ordained with chill com¬ 
mand, “as soon as she is well enough to hear it. If she 
gets well enough,” he added. 

“If? Bobs! You don’t think there’s any real dan¬ 
ger-” 

“Of course there is danger. What do you think fever 
means in such a case? You take things into your own 
hands, perpetrate a piece of criminal folly-■” 

“Bobs ! I couldn’t have stopped her.” 

“You could have told me the truth and let me handle 
the situation. She would never have dared if she knew 
that I knew. Now, if Dee dies-” 

“Don’t, Bobs!” 

“It will be your lie that killed her.” 

For once the reckless soul of Pat shrunk back upon 
itself in awed remorse. “You’ve never spoken to me that 
way in your life,” she whimpered. 

“I’ve never felt toward you before as I feel now.” 

“I’m sorry, Bobs. But I had to do it. I’d do it again 
to save Dee.” 

“Save her? Aid her in a cowardly shirking of her first 
duty as a woman and a wife. It is bad enough to find 
you lying to me. But to find her a coward and a 
slacker-” 

“You’re more angry at her than you are at me, aren’t 
you?” said Pat, in wonder and some resentment. She did 
not like to have anyone else put before her even for; 
indignation. 

He made no reply, but turned in at the gateway to the 
James ground. As they passed under the portico she 
stole a glance at his face. It had, by the magic of his 






234 


FLAMING YOUTH 


will, become calm, cheerful, self-possessed, exorcised of all 
wrath and dismay, the face of the confident, confidence- 
inspiring physician going on his duty of aid. Pat mar¬ 
velled and admired. 

For her it was a long and thought-haunted half hour 
before he emerged from Dee’s room. 

“Is it bad?” she whispered, striving to read his expres¬ 
sion. 

“No. A slight nervous shock. Nothing more.” 

“Oh, Bobs! I could cry with thankfulness.” 

“Save your tears,” he advised, “for those on whom 
they might make an impression.” 

“You don’t like me much, do you?” she sighed. “Did 
you tell Dee about my trick?” 

“Haven’t I made it clear that you are to make that 
explanation ?” 

“What if I don’t choose to?” 

“I think you will. Whether you like it or not.” 

Pat said with slow malice: “Shall I tell her that you 
asked me to marry you?” 

“Why not?” 

“Oh, very well!” She could think of nothing more effec¬ 
tive to say. 

He took his coat and hat from the chair upon which he 
had tossed them. 

“Bobs.” 

He turned at the door, eyeing her with an uncom¬ 
promising regard. 

“Don’t look at me in that poisonous way. Say you’re 
sorry, or I’m sorry, or something.” 

He did not move but seemed to be considering. When 
he spoke his voice shook her with its gravity: “It is not 
going to be easy to forgive you, Pat.” 

“How about Dee?” she shot at him. 


FLAMING YOUTH 235 

“That is between Dee and myself. She at least did not 
lie to me.” 

Pat flamed with a sense of unmerited injuries. “Oh, 
you go to hell!” she muttered. But her eyes were wonder¬ 
ing and frightened after he left her. Dee’s voice calling 
gave her something else to think about. She ran up¬ 
stairs. 

“What were you and Bobs quarrelling about?” de¬ 
manded the patient. 

“Nothing.” 

“You were. Was it about me? Is he very bitter 
against me?” 

“I’ll tell you to-morrow. You must go to sleep now.” 

“There’s something back of this.” Dee jumped from 
her bed and set her back to the door. “You won’t leave 
this room till you tell me.” 

“Get back into bed,” implored the alarmed Pat. “I’ll 
tell you. .Truly I will.” 

“Tell, then.” 

Pat related the tale of the stratagem with increasing 
relish in the unfolding of the drama. “Pretty clever of 
little Pat, what?” 

“I’m sorry you had to lie to Bobs, though.” 

“I’ve kept the best of it. When I told him, Bobs asked 
me to marry him.” 

“Asked you?” 

“Yes. Isn’t that a scream!” Between nervousness and 
exaltation of her diplomatic powers Pat burst into 
laughter. 

“And you laugh?” 

The mirth died on her lips. “Don’t you think it’s 
fun-” 

“Y ou—dirty—little—beast.” 

“What did I do?” faltered the younger sister. “Why 



236 


FLAMING YOUTH 


pick on me? I did it all for you anyway, and I think it’s 
pretty rotten, if you ask me, to-” 

“You didn’t laugh at Bobs for me.” 

“I didn’t laugh at him at all. I was too paralysed.” 

“If you had I hope he’d have killed you. I would.” 

A monstrous conjecture rose in Pat’s excited brain. 
“He isn’t the man, is he? It isn’t Bobs that you’re crazy 
about, and the other man just a bluff? It couldn't be.” 

“Why couldn’t it?” 

“Dee! It isn't." 

“No; it isn’t. But there’s no reason why it couldn’t be 
with any woman who had heart and sense enough to know 
him for what he is. He’s the best and finest person I’ve 
ever known. And when he does the biggest and noblest 
thing a man could do and offers his name and honour to 
shield a little heartless fool, he gets laughed at.” 

“But it wasn’t any of it true,” cried Pat feebly. “Don’t 
you see what a difference that makes?” 

“No. He thought it was true.” 

“Oh, very well! I guess I’m pretty rotten. But I’m 
just as fond of Bobs as you are. Dee Fentriss. Only, the 
idea of marrying him—well, it’s a scream. That’s all; a 
simple scream.” 

“Oh, do get out of here,” said Dee wearily. She 
slumped down into her bed and drew the covers up. 

“Good -night," said Pat, and made her exit. 

Before the hall mirror she paused to contemplate her¬ 
self. “There you are, Pattie-pat,” she remarked, with the 
little triple jerk of the head that set her shaggy locks rip¬ 
pling over her ears and neck. “You still look pretty good 
to me. But if this family was running a popularity con¬ 
test with peanuts for ballots, you wouldn’t get one shuck. 
Lord-ee! I wish Cary Scott was here for just one minute! 
I need moral support.” 



CHAPTER XXIII 


Spring was turbulent in the sap of young trees and the 
blood of young humans when Mary Delia James rolled 
along Fifth Avenue in the quietly elegant limousine pro¬ 
vided for her special use by a correctly generous husband. 
Nothing about her suggested participation in the turbu¬ 
lence of the season. Rather, life with that most unvernal 
young man, T. Jameson James, would have served to allay 
any tendencies toward ebullience which she might other¬ 
wise have exhibited. She gave the impression of a cool 
impassivity. 

The car had just turned into a side street when her 
languid expression livened. She signalled to her chauf¬ 
feur, leaned out of the window and called: 

“Cary! Cary Scott!” 

The object of the summons turned in mid-crossing and 
came back, his eyes shining with pleasure. 

“Dee! It is good to see you again. How’s James?” 

“All right, thank you. What do you mean by turning 
up and not letting us know ?” 

“Unexpected,” he explained. “I hardly had time to 
find it out before I was here.” 

“The telegraph, that useful invention, is still operating. 
Get in; we’re blocking traffic. You’re dining and spend-, 
ing the night with us, of course.” 

“If I stay over,” he answered dubiously. “I don’t 
know yet. Tell me about the family.” 

“As usual. We’re all flourishing in true Fentrissi 
style.” 

“Pat? And Mr. Fentriss? And the Brownings?’* 

237 


238 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Separated. No; I don’t mean Fred and Con,” she 
amended, laughing at the dismay in his face. “Dad and 
the Brownings. Fred’s sticking to business and to Con; 
they’ve got a cottage over beyond the Club; addition in 
June, not to the cottage, to the family. Pat’s running 
Holiday Knoll like a veteran, though just now she’s in 
Boston. She’ll be sunk in desolation when she finds 
you’ve been here and she’s missed you.” 

“Perhaps I’ll be back again when she returns,” he said 
carelessly, but his words belied his inward resolution so 
to arrange his schedule that he would run no risk of the 
peace-destroying encounter. As a minor determination, 
he decided to accept Dee’s invitation for the night, since 
it involved no danger of seeing Pat. 

“Yes; Pat’s quite doing her job,” continued Dee. “It’s 
good for her to have the responsibility. But she’s still a 
queer, restless, morbid kid. You saw a lot of her at one 
time, Cary. I always thought you had a steadying 
influence on her. What’s the matter with Pat, do you 
think?” 

“The fever of the age, perhaps.” 

“Oh, we’ve all got that. But Pat’s temperature is 
particularly high. She rushes from one whirl to another, 
playing Billy-old-hell with Mark Denby one week, and 
Emslie Selfridge another, and.Selden Thorpe, a third, and 
what does she get out of it? Not even excitement, or else 
she’s a little liar. She’s beaten it now because she says 
she’s bored to suicide with this place.” 

“And you yourself, Dee? How is it with you?” 

“Oh, I’ve everything I want,” she said restlessly. 

“Everything should include happiness; I’m glad.” 

“What’s that? Don’t know—yeh.” Her voice was 
hard. “Please stop looking at me like a solemn owl, as if 


FLAMING YOUTH 239 

you were probing for symptoms. Bobs does all that I 
need in that line.” 

“Osterhout? How is he?” 

“Go and see him. He needs stirring up. You are 
coming to us to-night, aren’t you?” 

“Only too charmed. What’s this place?” he asked, as 
the car drew to the curb. 

“My tailor’s. Will you wait for me?” 

“Heavens, no!” he laughed. “I’m nearly forty now. 
Can’t spare the time.” 

“Then account for yourself before you go. What 
brings you here so suddenly and without any announce¬ 
ment?” 

“A peculiar mission.” 

“Private, for a guess. Not hooked, are you, Cary?” 

“Nothing of that nature. It’s private, but not secret, 
from you. In fact, you may be able to help me.” 

“I? In what possible way?” 

“I want to find Stanley Wollaston.” 

At the name a slow colour rose in Dee’s cheeks until it 
tinged even the broadly and beautifully modelled forehead. 
“He’s gone away. To Richmond. I can give you his 
address.” 

“Good! I’ve some important news for him. There’s no 
reason why you shouldn’t know it. His aunt in England has 
died and left him the estate. Stan’s lean davs are over.” 

The rich hue ebbed out of Dee’s face. “He’ll go back, 
then,” she mused. At once she recovered herself. “I am 
glad,” she said. 

“I knew you would be,” he answered. But he thought 
with pity: “She still loves him”; and, with uneasiness, 
“and still sees him.” He continued: “He’ll be going 
back within a month at the latest. I’ll go on to-morrow 
to find him.” 


240 


FLAMING YOUTH 


He got out, bared his head, and helped her to alight 

“At seven o’clock then,” she said. “Shall I get Some 
people in? Who do you want to see?” 

“No one else in the world,” he answered with such 
conviction that she smiled up at him. 

“You are a dear, Cary. I can’t tell you how much 
we’ve missed you. Pat almost went into mourning.” 

She did not see his expression change, ever so slightly, 
as he turned away. Business of his own kept Scott busy 
most of the afternoon. When he reached the club he 
found Jameson James waiting to motor him out. James 
was amiable in his stiff and carefully measured way. 

Scott went to his room immediately upon their arrival, 
bathed, dressed, drank the preliminary cocktail which 
Dee had mixed with her own hands and sent up to him, 
and had started to go downstairs when he stopped, his 
breath piling up, as it were, in his throat from an emotion 
half dismay, half rapture. The unforgettable, luscious 
huskiness of a voice floated up from below. 

“Dee; where are you? Do come and hook this last hook 
for me. I can’t get the dam’ thing to stay.” 

He took a step forward. Pat looked up. “Oh, 
Mist-o ,r Scott!” she crowed. “It’s too flawless to see you 
again. I thought you were never coming back.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


He walked back with her to Holiday Knoll after dinm 
Pat’s face was thoughtful, moody. As they paced 
silence he studied it intently, with passionate longing 
with passionate misgivings. Out of a reverie she spoke. 

“I’ve never missed anyone in my life as I’ve missed yc 
You were right.” 

“About what, Pat?” 

“That day you took me to Philadelphia. You said 
miss you more than I thought. D’you remember, I t< 
you then what I thought about it. ‘Oh, well, I’ll miss I 
for a few days and then—pouf!’ ” There followed 
impatient, boyish wriggle and hunch of the lithe shouldc 
“ ‘It’ll be all over.’ It wasn’t all over.” 

“For me it has never been over. Not for a sin 
minute.” 

“Have you wanted me so much?” Beneath the c 
scious coquetry there was a more wistful note. 

“Oh, God, Pat!” His voice sounded thick and rou 
“There has been no colour or savour, no music or f 
grance in life without you.” 

“Why did you go away?” she demanded accusingly. 

“You know, I had to go.” 

“Why did you come back?” 

“Not to see you. I didn’t want to see you. Dee t 
me that you were away.” 

“She told me you were here. I’d phoned over ab 
some clothes. So I just thought I’d like to see you agj 
Don’t scowl at me. You look as if you think I oughi 
to have come.” 

241 


« 


“Are you sorry I did ?” 

He looked away from her into the wind-swept night. 
“Are you angry because I did?” 

“I love you,” he burst out. “God, how I love you!” 
She laughed softly. Her hand slid down his arm, 
asped for a moment the wrist in which his pulses leapt 
adly to her touch, wreathed itself, cool and strong and 
oooth, around his palm. “And I love you,” she half- 
hispered gaily. “I’m terribly in love with you”—a 
iuse of deliberate intent—“to-night. Because you’ve 
;en away from me so long.” 

“Ah, yes, to-night!” Pie made no effort to keep the 

tterness out of his voice. “But, to-morrow-” 

“To-night’s to-night,” she broke in happily. “We’ve 
>t lots of it to ourselves. It’s only nine o’clock. I 
•oke away early on purpose.” Arrested by the look on 
s face, she added with exasperation and protest: “Cary! 
ou’re not going to play propriety to-night? When we 
iven’t seen each other for so long?” 

She shook the gleamy mist of her hair about her face, 
ive a gnomish bend and twist to body and neck and 
jered sidelong at him from out the tangle. 

Suddenly her face darted upward. Her mouth met his 
a grotesque parody of a passion-laden kiss. 

“Oh, bad bunny!” she admonished herself in mock 
proach. He stopped, gazing at her from beneath bent 
•ows. 

“You hated that, didn’t you?” she said. 

“Yes.” 

“Because it wasn’t real?” 

“Because it was mockery.” 

“Petite gamine stuff. But I’m not petite gamine to- 





FLAMING YOUTH 243 

night; I’m something else. I don’t know what I am. Do 
you?” 

“No.” 

“Don’t be cross with me. Whatever it is that I am, it’s 
sorry that it kissed you that way. I didn’t mean to make 
a josh of it.” 

He smiled. “One might as well try to be cross with a 
moonbeam.” 

They had come around by the side street, and now he 
held the garden gate back for her. The house was dim. 
Pat kissed her hand to the clematis arbour. 

“D’you remember?” she murmured. 

“Is there one moment ever spent with you that I’ve 
forgotten?” 

“Would you like to forget?” 

“There are times when I would give anything in the 
world to forget.” 

“But I don’t want you to forget.” 

“You want me to have to bear this always?” 

“No. I don’t want you to be unhappy about it. I 
want—I don’t know what I do want. Except now. Now 
I want to have this evening just to ourselves.” She 
opened a side door, spoke to a servant, moving about in 
the kitchen. “It’s all right, Katie.” Then to Scott: 
“Aren’t you coming in?” 

He hesitated, but when she added impatiently, “Oh, 
don’t be such a crab!” he followed her. 

“Go into the small conservatory,” she bade him. 
•“That’s my work. I’ve fussed it up into a sort of den.” 

She bounded upstairs and ran into her room, shook out 
her hair, gathered it, studied herself in the glass. Her 
eyes were brilliant, heavy-lidded, dreamy. She shook her¬ 
self impatiently; her strong, supervitalised young body 
felt cramped and pent in the close-fitting tailor-made 


244 


FLAMING YOUTH 


which she had on. She plucked at the buttons with 
hurried fingers, wriggled out of the garment which she 
kicked from her feet and left lying on the floor, tossed 
her corsets after it, and exhaled a long, luxurious “Ooo- 
oo-oofff!” of satisfaction and voluptuous relief. 

Opening the door of her clothes-press, she rummaged 
for a moment and pulled out a long, sweeping robe, which 
she drew about her, moulding it to the boyish set of her 
shoulders and the woman’s depth and contour of her 
bosom. She caught up a cigarette, lighted a match, then, 
lapsing into thought, let it droop from her fingers until 
the scorching brought an angry “Damn!” of pain. She 
threw the cigarette after the expiring match. No; she 
wouldn’t smoke, much as her tense nerves demanded it. 
She would keep her mouth fresh and sweet for Cary’s 
first kiss. 

She ran down to him, putting on the far light in the 
hallway, so that only a dim glow invaded the conserva¬ 
tory-den. Scott stood at the window in an attitude of 
attention. 

“What are you doing?” she asked. 

“Listening.” 

“Music! A violin. Oh, I know. It’s a visitor at the 
Eastmans’, next door. He’s good. And how -flawless of 
him to be playing just now. Open the window. Let’s 
hear it all.” 

He obeyed. She drew in to him- Her ready fingers 
sought his palm. 

“Want me to mix you a drink?” 

“No, dear.” 

“That’s better,” she approved. “Though,” she added, 
with her old air of gaminerie , “it might go further and not 
get a call-down. What is it he’s playing?” 

“ ‘The iElegie.’ 1 ” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


245 


The violin was sobbing, panting, pleading like a woman 
in sweet distress. The wind swept the notes to them until 
the whole room was surcharged with the passion and grief 
of it. 

Pat lifted Scott’s hand, cuddled it to her cheek, dipped 
it away carelessly, turned from him, drifted out of the 
den into the hallway, back again, and to the divan in the 
far corner, where she threw herself, snuggling amidst the 
pillows. Her eyes grew heavy, languorous; in their 
depths played a shadowed gleam like the far reflection of 
flame in the heart of sombre waters. The long, thrilling, 
haunted, wind-borne prayer of the violin penetrated to the 
innermost fibre of her, mingling there with the passionate 
sense of his nearness, swaying her to undefined and flash¬ 
ing languors, to unthinkable urgencies. 

“Oh, Cary!” she breathed, in the breaking seduction 
of her voice, a voice that blended and was one with the 
resistless pleading of the music. And again: “Oh, 
Cary!” 

Her arms yearned out to him, drawing him through the 
dimness. With a cry he leapt to her, clasped her, felt 
her young strength and lissome grace yield to his enfold- 
ment. Through her sundered lips he drew the wine of 
her breath deep, deep into his veins, until all his self was 
merged and lost in her passion. 

Outside the great wind possessed the world, full of the 
turbulence, the fever, the unassuaged desire of Spring, the 
allegro furioso of the elements, and through it pierced the 
unbearable sweetness of the stringed melody. 

The strain died. Was it after a minute, or an hour, or 
a night that was an age in their intertwined lives? He 
was back at the window, leaning against the casement, 
drawing the rushing wind into his lungs, his heart burst¬ 
ing, his soul a whirl of fire. 


246 


FLAMING YOUTH 


Behind him, in the gloom, sounded the shaken softness 
of her breathing. He bent his head upon his arms. 

“Oh, God!” he said. “Pat. Little Pat!” 

She came to him then, spread her gracious arms wide, 
flung the gleaming fog of her hair to the wind, enclasped 
him, claimed his soul with her lips. 

“I’m not sorry,” she panted. “I’m not! I’m not! 
I’m glad!” 


CHAPTER XXV 


NOTHING irked Pat more than being awakened too 
early. Consequently Katie’s knock upon her door, at the 
third discreet repetition, elicited a plaintive growl of 
protest. 

“Oh, go away!” 

“Special delivery letter for you, Miss Pat.” 

“Shove it under the door and don’t bother me.” She 
flumped over in bed, burrowing her face»among the pillows 
like an annoyed baby. 

Very much did Pat wish to sleep. Until long after 
midnight she had lain awake, thinking excitedly. To be 
roused out of the profound oblivion which she had finally 
achieved, thus untimely, was a little too much. But that 
letter got between her and her rest. From Cary Scott, 
of course. She visualised the oblong blue stamp, insistent, 
intrusive, “immediate.” Oh, well! Up she jumped, 
caught the envelope from the floor, and dived back into 
bed to read it. 

It was mainly repetition of what he had said last night 
when they parted: nothing but the absolute necessity of 
going would have taken him away from her at such a time; 
he would be back in a few days at the latest; she must 
wait until then; must not let herself worry, must not make 
herself unhappy, must trust in him. It ended, “I love 
you, Pat.” Through the quiet directness of the wording 
Pat felt the stress of an overwhelming emotion. It was 
not so much worry or unhappiness that filled Pat’s 
thoughts as a confused and colourful bewilderment, a sense 

of unreality. There intervened a reflection from her mis- 

247 


248 


FLAMING YOUTH 


education through the media of flash fiction and the con¬ 
ventional false moralizings of the screen. In a variety 
of presentations they all taught the same lesson, that when 
girls “went wrong” they invariably “got into trouble.” She 
passed her hands down along her slender, boyish body 
and experienced a sharp qualm of fear and disgust and 
anger, a visualisation of gross and sodden changes in 
those slim contours. It couldn’t happen to her. In 
spite of the movies, other girls “took a chance” and “got 
away with it.” Ada Clare, for instance, according to 
common gossip; nothing had happened to her. Cissie 
Parmenter had lightly hinted at “experiences.” Pat 
thought it would be exciting to tell Cissie. But would 
it be safe? She would like to have Cissie’s reassurance 
that everything would be all right. But why should she 
need reassurance? She steadied herself with the thought, 
entertained wholly without idea of blasphemy or irrever¬ 
ence, that God wouldn’t let anything like that come about, 
the God to whom she had paid such assiduous homage by 
going regularly to church and asking every night for what 
she specially wanted on the morrow or in the further 
future. It was her naive idea of an unwritten pact with 
the Deity that the performance of her little ritual, be it 
never so self-seeking, entitled her, of right, to definite 
rewards and exemptions, claimable as required. This 
was one of them. Surely He would keep to His part of 
the bargain. Otherwise, what good would religion be to 
anyone? 

It occurred to her uncomfortably that He had some¬ 
where said, “The wages of sin is death,” which she secretly 
deemed bad grammar even if if was in the Bible. But Pat 
did not really feel that this was sin; rather it was accident. 
Technically it might be sin; she admitted so much. But 
if it were really sin she would, as a sound Christian, feel 


FLAMING YOUTH 


249 


remorse. And she did not feel remorse. Therefore it; 
could not in any serious sense be sin. Irrefutable logic! 
What did she feel? She asked herself. A sense of the 
fullness of life, of adventure boldly dared. She had met 
one of the great crises of a woman’s life, the crisis, indeed. 
It must be so, since all the stories and movies and plays 
agreed on the point. The singular aspect of it was that 
she was conscious of no inner change. She was the same 
Pat Fentriss, only a day older than yesterday. Being a 
“woman,” if this was it, was not so different from being 
a “girl.” 

And Mr. Scott. According to the conventions, as she 
had absorbed them through the sensationalised and dis¬ 
torted lens to which her intellectual vision had become 
habituated, the lover should lose all “respect” for the 
unfortunate girl, this being the first symptom of the waning 
of his love. Well, it wasn’t working that way with her lover. 
The few, broken words of parting last night, the still 
passion of his letter, told a different story. Possibly, 
reflected Pat, the people who set forth what purported to 
be life, on screen, stage, and the printed page, didn’t know 
so much about it after all. Or possibly she and Cary 
Scott were different from other people. She felt convinced 
that she was. 

From this she fell to speculating upon Scott’s probable 
attitude toward the ingenious and comforting theory of 
conduct and responsibility which she just had formulated 
specially to fit the present crisis. Somehow it did not 
seem quite satisfactory in the illumination of his imagined 
view. She had thought of him always and rather mourn¬ 
fully as a non-religious if not actually irreligious man; 
but it was disturbingly cast up from the depths of hex; 
mind that if Cary Scott had a God, he would never try 
either to make cheap excuses to nor shift responsibility 


250 


FLAMING YOUTH 


upon Him. And •suddenly in that light her exculpatory 
arguments seemed shallow and paltering. This uncom¬ 
fortable consideration she thrust determinedly into the 
background, and concentrated her thought upon her next 
meeting with Scott. 

All things considered, she was not, on the whole, sorry 
that he had gone away, assuming, of course, that he came 
back very soon. It gave her time to think, to figure 
things out free from the immediate glamour of his pres¬ 
ence and the disturbing gladness of his return after the 
long disseverance. Did she really love him? She sup¬ 
posed she must; otherwise-Yet there was still strong 

Within her the impulse toward the companionship of youth 
which had inspired her petulant remonstrance to Dr. Bobs 
over his opinion as to the desirable age for her husband: 
“I don’t want to marry my grandfather!’* Would she 
marry Cary Scott if he were free? Even now she doubted 
it. Not at once, anyway. She wanted her own freedom 
for a time yet, freedom to enjoy life, to range, to pick 
and choose. But she had made her choice. Tradition 
would hold that she had taken an irrevocable step, com¬ 
mitted herself. Tradition be damned! She didn’t be¬ 
lieve it. Would Cary take that view? If, on his return, 
he should assume the proprietary attitude, evince a sense 
of possessiveness—Pat clenched her fists but at once soft¬ 
ened with the recollection of his sure comprehension, his 
unerring tact, his instinctive sense of her deeper emotions 
and reactions. 

So far as the immediate future went, he was not free 
to marry her, nor likely to be. That problem need not be 
faced now. Suppose later she fell in love and wanted to 
marry someone else; what would be her course then? Oh, 
well! Let that take care of itself when it came. Mean¬ 
time she had something more immediate to look forward to 



FLAMING YOUTH 


251 


in Cary’s return. She anticipated it with a mingling of 
trepidation, eagerness, warmth, and excited curiosity, 
the latter element being predominant. 

On the following morning she had another letter, and 
still a third on the day after. She quite gloried in his 
devotion. But she did not answer the letters. She 
rather wanted to but found a difficulty in beginning. She 
preferred to plan out what she should say to him when 
they met again, and was in the act of building up a quite 
thrilling and' eloquent statement of her feelings when the 
phone summoned her. 

“Pat?” It was Dee’s voice, queer and strained. “Can 
you come over at once?” 

“Yes. What’s happened?” 

“Jim has been hurt.” 

“Jim? How?” 

“Hit by a car.” 

“Oh, Dee! Is it bad?” 

“Yes. I think so. They’re bringing him here.” 

“I’ll be right Over.” 

Pat made a dash for her runabout. When she reached 
the James house there were two cars in the driveway, Dr. 
Osterhout’s and a large touring car strange to her. 
There was blood on the steps which Pat mounted. 

“Is he killed?” she asked, chokingly, of a maid who was 
hurrying through the hall. 

“No’m,” said the girl. “I don’t think so.” Then 
added in awe-stricken tones: “He was swearin’ somethin’ 
awful when they brung him in. The poo-er man!” 

Pat followed her to the front room. Dr. Osterhout’s 
head was thrust out, at her knock. 

“What can I do, Bobs?” she asked. 

He nodded, approving the steadiness of her voice and 
control. “Locate a trained nurse and bring her here.” 


252 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“I’ll have one in half an hour. How is He?” 

“Bad.” 

Within the time prescribed Pat was back with the 
nurse. She found Dee in the library waiting. The 
young wife’s face was sallow, her eyes wide and shining 
and fixed. 

“Oh, Dee! don’t!” begged Pat. “You look so afraid.” 

“I am afraid,” was the monotoned reply. 

“Is he going to die?” 

“I don’t know. That’s what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid 
he isn’t.” 

“Dee!” 

“I know, I know how it sounds. I don’t care. When 
the word first came they said he was killed. I was glad.” 

Pat stared at her aghast. 

“Why should I lie and pretend?” whispered the wife 
fiercely. “Why shouldn’t I want to be free of him? You 
know how it is between us. I’m a marriage-slave to a man 
who has no thought of anything but himself.” She 
gulped and writhed in an access of strong physical nausea. 

Pat’s strong hands fell upon her wrists. “Stop, Dee! 
You mustn’t let yourself go that way. Tell me how it 
happened.” 

“I don’t know anything about it. The Marburys’ car 
struck him, down near the station.” 

“Poor Jimmie!” 

“Poor Jimmie? Poor me! Shall I tell you what hap¬ 
pened last week?” 

“No. Not now, Dee. You’re-” 

“I’m all right, I tell you. And I’m going to tell you. 
We fought it out to a finish. He wants to have children. 
Children , after the agreement he broke! Well, I couldn’t 
tell him the whole reason why I wouldn’t; but I told him 
this, and it’s true, too, as far as it goes. I said to him_: 



FLAMING YOUTH 


253 


‘Jim, if you’d ever had one single thought for anybody 
in your life but yourself I might feel different. But if 
there’s anything in heredity I’d as soon hand down idiocy 
to a child as your strain. Now, if you want a separation, 
get it.’ What do you think he said? ‘Oh, no, my dear. 
That’s heroics. I’m just about the same as other men. 
You don’t get off so easily. As for selfishness, you didn’t 
marry me in any spirit of altruism.’ ” 

“He had you there, Dee.” 

“Yes; he had me there. Then he said, ‘I’m going to 
hold you until you make good or break away yourself.’ ” 

“ ‘Then I’ll break,’ I said. ‘I’ll leave you.’ He only 
smiled. ‘You won’t find it too easy,’ he said. I could 
have killed him.” 

“Are you really going to leave him?” asked Pat, wide- 
eyed. 

“I was. Now”— she jerked her hand upward—“how 
can I? What kind of a brute would I look?” 

“Perhaps he will die. Poor Jimmie!” 

“If you say ‘Poor Jimmie’ once again I’ll scream at the 
top of my voice.” 

A man in chauffeur’s livery came down the stairs. He 
looked beseechingly at Dee. “I couldn’t help it, Mrs. 
James,” he gulped. “I never seen him until he grabbed 
the kid an’ then I couldn’t turn.” 

“What kid?” asked Pat. 

“Didn’t you hear how it happened?” 

“No. TeH us.” 

“I was cornin’ down the road by the turn above the 
bridge when a little girl run out from the curb. Mr. 
James must have been right behind her. I honked and 
the kid stopped dead. I give the wheel a twist and the 
kid jumped right under the fender. I knew there wasn’t 
no chance, but I jerked her again and felt her hit some- 


#54) FLAMING YOUTH 

thin’ hard, and the kid yelled once, and there was Mr. 
James under the wheels. He’d seen the little girl and 
he made a dive for her and shoved her out from under 
just as I—I got him. It was the nerviest thing”—the 
man’s rough voice broke. “He must-a knowed he didn’t 
have a chance. A—a—man’s thinkin’ little of himself to 
do that for a Dago kid he never seen before.” 

Dee was leaning forward with fixed stare and twitching 
bps which barely formed the words: “Did Jim do that?” 

“Yes’m. He sure did. He’d oughta get the Carnegie 
medal for it.” 

“And the little girl?” said Pat, thrilled. “He saved 
her?” 

The man shook a doleful head. “He shoved her out 
from under my wheels and she rolled right into a truck 
passin’ the other way.” 

“Killed?” 

He nodded, speechlessly. 

Dee burst into laughter. She laughed and laughed and 
laughed, 


CHAPTER XXVI 


Never in all her career of coquetry had Pat devoted 
more careful planning than to her meeting with Cary 
Scott when he should return. At first sight of him all her 
elaborate campaign was dissipated in consternation. 

“Mist-e r Scott!” she cried. 

He had come out from the city direct to Holiday Knoll 
and was standing in the library, as she came downstairs 
to meet him, the morning light brilliant on his haggard 
face. At her exclamation a wry smile twisted his lips. 

“Still that, to you?” he asked. 

She moved toward him slowly, a little shyly, with flut¬ 
tering hands outstretched, lips upturned, rather from the 
wish to comfort his manifest suffering than from any 
impulse of passion within herself. He drew her into his 
arms, bent over her, kissed her gently. She felt him 
tremble in her clasp. 

“What is it, Cary?” she whispered. “You look too 
appalling.” 

“I haven’t slept very well.” 

She drew back to survey him. “I don’t believe you’ve 
slept at all,” she pronounced. “Have you?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” 

“It does! You mustn’t take it that way.” 

His expression told her that her coolness amazed him. 
And, then, suddenly, by reflex from him, it amazed her¬ 
self. It was so exactly the reverse of the programmed 
course of events as presented in the familiar media of 
her reading. She, the woman, the “betrayed,” was striv¬ 
ing to comfort and reassure him, the man, the “betrayer.” 

255 



256 FLAMING YOUTH 

“Did you expect that I should take it lightly, Pat?” 

“No, but-” 

“X love you,” he said. No more than that, hardly 
above his breath. But it was as if he had pronounced 
the final word of passion, of yearning, of devotion; his full 
confession of the bond which is at once primal and eternal 
between man and woman. 

She dropped her head. The thick clusters of her hair 
rippled forward, almost concealing the eyes which she 
lifted, aslant, alight, mischievous, yet craving, to his. 

“Do you?” she whispered. “Do you truly?” She 
nestled again, close in his embrace. 

“And you, Pat?” he asked. 

“I don’t know,” she answered, troubled. “I’ve hardly 
been able to think—since. I suppose I must; but-” 

“We have a great deal to say to each other,” he began 
gravely, when she broke in: 

“I’ve had so much else to think about. Have you heard 
about poor Dee?” 

“Dee? No. What is it?” 

“It isn’t exactly Dee. It’s Jimmie. He was run over 
by a car three days ago.” 

“Not killed!” 

“Almost. It’s his back. Bobs says they can save him 
but it would be kinder to let him die. He’ll never be any¬ 
thing but a helpless log.” 

“Good Heavens! Poor Dee! I must go over there.” 

“We’ll go over together. I’ll tell you as we go.” She 
ran to get her hat, returned at once, setting it in place 
on her mutinous hair, stood studying him for a moment 
through half-closed eyes, then leapt to him, flung her 
arms about his body, pressed her cheek to his, murmuring, 
“It’s too flawless to have you back, Cary!” 

Outside, she said, “Dee was going to leave him.” 




FLAMING YOUTH 


257 


“No! For what earthly reason?” 

“I can’t tell you. Yes, I can. I can tell you any¬ 
thing—now.” She flushed, but looked at him unflinch¬ 
ingly. “It’s strange, isn’t it?” 

“It’s unutterably sweet,” he said. “It’s the compan¬ 
ionship that is deeper and more lasting than any other 
association.” 

“But there’s always been that between us,” she mused. 
“Only, it’s different now. I don’t quite understand; 
there’s so much I don’t understand, Cary, dear. But I 
know that I want to tell you. I don’t believe Dee would 
mind.” 

She repeated Dee’s bitter protest over James’s breach 
of faith, her refusal to accept maternity, her recent reso¬ 
lution to quit her husband at whatever cost of scandal. 
“And now she can’t,” she concluded. 

“You mean that she won’t.” 

“Yes. Dee’s a good sport. She’ll stick to a man when 
he’s down. The worst of it is, she told him why she 
wouldn’t have a baby of his; because he was just a bunch 
of pure selfishness. And then he goes and pulls a real 
hero stunt and deliberately throws his life away for a 
Dago brat—and doesn’t save the darn thing, anyway,” 
concluded Pat, her lips quivering. “Where does that 
leave Dee?” 

“Was it what Dee said that drove him to do it?” 

“No. It was too quick for that. He did it instinctively. 
It must have been in him all the while to do the big, self' 
sacrificing thing when it was put up to him. Like the 
men on the Titanic that everybody thought were wasters. 
That’s what makes it so rotten for Dee. She thinks she’s 
misjudged him all the time. I believe she’d give her life 
now to have a child for him.” 

“Well?” queried Scott. 


253 FLAMING YOUTH 

Pat shook a mournful head. “No, never. Not a chance. 
Haven’t I told you? He’ll live in a plaster cast the rest 
of his life if he does live. I wouldn’t! . . . I’ve had a hell 
of a time with Dee, Cary.” 

“Poor darling! Do you think Dee will want to see me?” 

“Yes. I’m sure she will. Perhaps not to-day.” 

“Has this really turned her to James again, Pat?” 

“Has it made her really love him, you mean? How 
could she? Women aren’t that way. But all she can 
think of now is her remorse.” 

He paced along beside her in deep thought for a time 
before he said: “Was there any other reason for her 
leaving him?” 

“The other man?” She gave him a quick look. “I sup¬ 
pose that had something to do with it. Cary, was it a 
rotten trick for Dee to marry Jimmie?” 

“I’m afraid it was, rather. Poor child! She’s paying 
for it.” 

“Do women always pay for it?” 

“No. Sometimes the men do.” 

“You know Dee’s man, don’t you?” 

“Yes.” 

“Do you know where he is now?” 

“Not at this moment. But I know he is intending to 
come back here in a few days.” 

“To see Dee?” 

“I’m afraid so.” 

“He mustn’t.” 

“No; he mustn’t.” 

“Can’t you stop him?” 

“If I can reach him.” 

“Cary, you must stop him.” 

“Is she still in love with him?” 

“Terribly.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


259 


“I’ll do my best.” 

At the James house they found Dr. Osterhout. Pat 
went up to Dee after bidding Cary come to the Knoll 
directly after dinner. Going out with the physician he 
asked how serious James’s ,case really was. 

“As serious as it could possibly be,” was the grim 
reply. “He’ll live.” 

“Then Pat was right. He’ll never be any better?” 

“Not much. A paralytic. With a good deal of suf¬ 
fering.” 

“Can’t you help him die?” muttered Scott. 

The medical man turned an uncompromising look upon 
the other. “When I acquire the wisdom of Deity, then 
I’ll assume the prerogatives of Deity. Not before.” 

“It’s a merciless attitude. In a case like this-” 

“In a case like this,” the physician cut him short, “the 
man’s life may be valuable to others if not to himself. 
And suppose after I’d killed him, as you so casually sug¬ 
gest”—the other’s gesture of protest did not serve to stop 
him—“and some new operation was discovered that would 
restore this kind of case; where should I stand with my¬ 
self?” 

“Is that likely?” 

“It’s most unlikely. But it’s possible. In any case, 
we doctors do not kill.” 

“You don’t give a thought to Dee.” 

A ripple of pain twisted the harsh features. “I’m try¬ 
ing not to. My business is with my patient.” 

“Does he know?” 

“Yes. He wormed the truth out of me. He wants Dee 
to get a separation.” 

“A separation? I don’t understand. What is hi| 
idea ?” 

“To relieve her from being tied to a corpse, as he says. 



260 FLAMING YOUTH 

He’s taken to thinking of others besides himself at this 

late date, has T. Jameson James. A close look at Death 
* 

sometimes works these miracles.” 

“Trying to make his peace with Heaven?” 

“No. He’s honest in this, just as he has always been 
in his selfishness. He’s thinking only of Dee.” 

“Does he really care for her, Osterhout?” 

“I think he’d die without her.” 

“Isn’t there a good chance of his dying anyway?” 

“Nothing to bank on.” 

“What does Dee say to the separation idea?” 

“Won’t listen. Just turns away and stops her ears.” 

More than ever convinced that Wollaston must be kept 
away from Dorrisdale at all costs, Scott put in the hours 
between his talk with Osterhout and his appointment with 
Pat, striving to locate the Englishman on the long¬ 
distance telephone, but without success. 

Upon his arrival at the Knoll, Scott found only Ralph 
Fentriss in possession. 

“Pat is just starting back from Dee’s,” said the osten¬ 
sible head of the Fentriss household, after a hearty greet¬ 
ing. “She telephoned. Pretty rough on Dee, this, 
isn’t it?” 

“She’s standing up under it like the sport she is,” 
said Scott. They chatted of local matters, Fentriss being 
patently restless. At the sound of Pat’s step on the 
threshold he said with relief: 

“You’ll excuse me, Cary. I’ve got a business engage¬ 
ment downtown.” 

The visitor repressed a smile. So Ralph Fentriss’s 
evening “business engagements” remained a constant quan¬ 
tity. A casual sort of father. Had he been less casual, 
had Pat been less unprotected—a throb of remorse and 
self-contempt sickened Scott to the core of his heart. 


FLAMING YOUTH 


261 


How could he have let himself be so swept away! . • . Pat 
stood before him in the doorway, and at once his bitter 
self-accusation sank into nothingness before the delight of 
her victorious charm. How could he have helped being 
carried away, loving her as he did! 

She tossed her hat on the table, her gloves at him and 
herself into the arm chair. 

“Now we can talk,” said she. “You begin.” 

At their morning meeting it had seemed to him that the 
indeterminate and hovering tragedy of the James house¬ 
hold had aged and sobered Pat, given more of the womanly 
to her elfin fascination. Now she seemed again all gamine , 
provocative, elusive, challenging. He stood looking down 
at her gravely. 

“Owl-face!” she mocked, protruding the tip of a red 
tongue. 

“Pat, will you marry me?” 

The smile died from her eyes and lips. “How could we? 
You’re married.” 

“I’ll get free.” 

“How can you?” 

“I’d rather not tell you.” 

“You’ve got to tell me,” she retorted imperiously. 

“Yes,” he admitted. “I’ve got to, if you insist. You’ve 
the right to know.” 

She softened. “Have I? Tell me, then.” 

“I have—evidence.” He spoke with an effort. 

“Against your wife?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why haven’t you used it before?” 

“I haven’t wanted to. And—I considered that it would 
not be entirely honourable.” 

“If it wasn’t honourable before, how is it nc de¬ 
manded the keen Pat. 



262 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“I don’t know that it is,” he muttered. “But there’s 
another question of honour now, a paramount question, 
between you and me.” 

“Tell me why it wouldn’t be honourable to use your evi¬ 
dence,” persisted Pat, ignoring the other issue. 

“You’re making it very hard. It’s true that she—my 
wife—has been unfaithful. But that was after we had 
been long separated in everything but the formalities, 
and morally I was in no position to blame her,” 

“You’d been untrue to her?” 

“Yes.” 

“With another woman. Were you very much in love 
with her, Cary, the other woman?” she asked wistfully. 

For a moment he hesitated, too long a moment, for a 
flash of hateful intuition shot through Pat’s quick brain. 
“There was more than one. There may have been a dozen. 
Oh, I think you’re revolting !” 

“I’m not going to lie to you, Pat. I regarded myself 
as free of all responsibility to her-” 

“You’re free of all responsibility to me,” she choked. 
“Don’t think that I want-” 

“No. I am bound to you by the strongest tie I Have 
ever known. I love you.” 

“You’ve loved a hundred other women,” charged Pat, 
savagely revelling in her exaggeration. 

“I’ve loved no one as I love you.” Despite the banality 
of,the words there was in his speech a quiet force that 
calmed and convinced her. “Not so that I ever wished 
to be free and marry.” 

“Of course,” she said loftily, “there’s no reason why I 
should be jealous of your past.” 

“It is your future that I have been jealous of always,” 
he replied. “That is a thousand times harder to bear. 
And now I am asking you to give it to me.” 





FLAMING YOUTH 


263 


“You’d do a dishonourable thing, a thing you consider 
dishonourable, to be free?” she asked. 

“To marry you,” he said doggedly. “Yes. There’s 
nothing I’d stop at.” 

She gave her little, delighted crow. “I believe you 
wouldn’t. But I’m not going to let you.” 

“You can’t prevent me.” 

“I wouldn’t marry you if you did.” 

His brows took on their ironic lift. “That is heroics, 
Pat; motion picture heroics. ‘To save the other woman.’ ” 
Pat pouted. “It’s misplaced nobility, my dear. She isn’t 
entitled to it. She doesn’t care for me. You do.” 

“Not enough to marry you, though. Not enough to be 
sure . It’s all so puzzling, Cary.” Her deep, soft voice 
shook. “I—I don’t understand myself. But I’m just 
not sure. Is that terrible of me, dear, not to want to 
marry you?” 

“Don’t you love me, Pat?” He asked, incredulous of the 
doubt itself. 

“I suppose I do, now. If it would only last, like this.” 

“But it can’t go on like this,” he cried hoarsely. 

“Why can’t it ?” she murmured protestingly. The 
eternal feminine within her, eternally static, eternally con¬ 
servative, eternally fatalistic where its own interests are 
concerned, was asserting itself. Better the thing as it 
is, however precarious, than a step in the dark. Change, 
to a woman’s apprehension, is a challenge to the unknown. 

“Surely you must know. Surely you must realize the 
constant risk, the constant danger-” 

“Of being found out? I’m not afraid for myself. You 
know, Cary, dear, I never can quite believe in danger until 
it comes. I suppose I ought to. I suppose I ought to feel 
different in lots of ways. Yet I don’t feel different. Not 
really. Tell me why, Cary.” 



264 


FLAMING YOUTH 


He bent and kissed the sweet, troubled eyes, the soft, 
questioning lips. “My darling!” he said brokenly. “My 
little Pat! I wish to God, I’d never come back-” 

“No; don’t wish that. I think I’m glad you came, 
anj^way. It’s been very dull without you, Cary,” she 
added with childish plaintiveness. 

“Then why-” 

“Don’t ask me any more whys to-night. Please! My 
head’s so tired with thinking. Throw open the windows. 
Wide! I want to breathe the spring.” 

He obeyed. The soft, odour-drenched, earthy wind 
flowed in, surrounded them, englamoured them, swept them 
into each other’s arms. 

“I’m so tired, Cary, dear,” murmured Pat. “So tired! 
Just hold me. Hold me close.” 




CHAPTER XXVII 


The night was warm, moist, astir with vernal growth. 
The trees whispered tender secrets to each other. Flowers 
were being born in the grasses. Clouds formed a light 
coverlet above an earth too fecund of dreams to sleep 
soundly. 

Dee emerged from the side door of the James house and 
moved down the cedar path, soft as a wraith. The still 
mansion oppressed her. For two weeks she had hardly 
stirred beyond earshot of her husband’s petulant, pathetic 
need of her. Her young blood craved air, the expanses, 
the sense of space and quiet. 

Definite verdict had been pronounced that afternoon 
upon T. Jameson James by Dr. Osterhout, after a careful 
resume of the case with the consulting surgeon. 

“He’ll last indefinitely. As long, one might say, as he 
has the will to live. Five years . . . Ten. Twenty, if he 
can stand it. Much depends on you. Dee.” 

“Will he get better?” * 

Osterhout moved uneasily. “Better? Stronger, a little. 
Not really better. A wheel-chair existence at best.” 

“I can’t conceive of it for Jim.” 

“He’ll adjust himself to it after a fashion. People do. 
But he’ll be difficult, dam’ difficult. Have you thought 
any more of his offer to release you?” 

“No. And I won’t think of it.” 

“I wouldn’t have supposed you would, being you. 
You’re a good sort, Dee. And a good sport.” He rubbed 
his forehead with a stubby forefinger. “As for your own 

status—you want me to be frank, don’t you?” 

265 


266 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Yes, Bobs.” 

“It’s a life of—well, practical widowhood for you. You 
understand.” 

Yes; she had understood, and with an influx of relief. 
Her loyalty would keep her beside her husband, helpless, 
whereas she would have left him had he been his normal 
self-centred, self-sufficient self. More; she would now 
gladly have forgiven him the breach of their private mar¬ 
riage agreement, have accepted the full regimen and 
responsibility of wifehood could she have borne him the 
child he wished, the child which might have brought an 
enduring and saving interest into his ruined life. But 
from that hateful duty she was absolved; the more reason 
for standing by him through his ordeal. At worst, she 
was now free to be faithful in thought and spirit to the 
man to whom, had he been husband or lover to her, she 
could have given her all in glorious surrender. 

He stepped from the shadow of a cedar and stood 
before her. 

“Dee!” 

“Stanley!” Her hands flew to her breast. “How long 
have you been here?” 

“Hours. Since dark.” 

“Why didn’t you send word?” 

“Would it have been safe to write?” 

“Quite. Now.” 

“How, now?” 

“Don’t you know? Haven’t you seen Cary Scott?” 

“Not since I left Baltimore. I came the first moment 
that I could after making arrangements. Our arrange¬ 
ments.” 

They had stood apart. But now he reached forward, 
took her hands, crushed them to his cheek. At his touch 
she flamed and trembled. 


FLAMING YOUTH 


267 


‘men can you come with me, Dee?” 

“With you? Where?” 

“To England. The divorce can be arranged, and our 
marriage follow. You can trust me.” 

“Oh, yes; I can trust you,” she answered dully. 

“Then, when?” 

“I can’t go with you, Stanley.” 

“Can’t?” he repeated incredulously. “When I can feel 
your pulse leap when I touch your hand, when-” 

“I love you with every breath I take,” she cried low 
and passionately. She snatched her hands from his grip, 
wreathed them back of his head, drew his lips down upon 
hers. “I’ve never dreamed what it could be to love as I 
love you.” 

“Come with me,” he said. 

The wife looked about her like a trapped creature. 
“I’ve got to make him understand,” she muttered to her¬ 
self in travail of spirit. “I’ve got to make him see and— 
and help me. Stanley,” she pleaded, “be kind to me and 
don’t stop me till I’ve finished telling what I’ve got to 
tell.” 

She related the accident and its sequel in few and simple 
words. For a time of pulse-beats Wollaston was silent, 
then: 

“Poor devil!” he murmured. “Poor, poor devil!” 

“So, you see, dear love-” 

“I see nothing but that we belong to each other. You 
can’t deny that kiss and what it means. You can’t let 
me go back alone, Dee. . . . Shall I stay?” 

“Oh, no! No! I couldn’t bear it.” 

“Then you must come with me. Now. To-night.” 

“For God’s sake, Stanley, don’t! Don’t kiss me.” She 
was fighting for strength, for breath. “Don’t make 


me 





268 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Dee! Dee! Where are you?” 

The petulant, flattened voice of helplessness came like 
a stab of pain through the night. A light, tenuous and 
sharp, flashed out from the wrecked man’s window. Its 
ray touched the cedar overshadowing them. 

Dee answered at once. “I’m coming, Jim. Just a 
moment. Good-bye, Stanley.” 

He gathered her into a slow, overmastering pressure of 
body to body, face to face. 

“Dee, I love you. I want you.” 

“I know. God, how I know!” 

“As you love and want me. What does anything else 
matter!” 

“Oh, love; don’t make it so bitter hard for me! I can’t 
leave him. He needs me so. I can’t! I can’t!” 

“Dee! The pain has come back. Where are you?” 

“Coming, Jim, dear!” She turned away from Wollas¬ 
ton without another look; heard him thrashing through 
the bushy growth like a man blinded; felt her knees sag 
and give way. 

She toppled slowly forward and lay, face down upon 
the earth that gives life, that gives courage, that gives 
endurance to bear the deadliest hurt, her Angers tearing 
in agony at the young grasses. 

Presently she heaved herself up and went into the house. 
Her mouth was firm, her eyes tearless. 

A good sort. A good sport. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


For two weeks Pat and Scott lived in a paradise of 
constant dangers and passionate adventure. Fate played 
into their hands; James, as he recovered a little strength, 
developed a strong inclination for Scott’s society, and 
insisted that he remain at their house as guest. The two 
men played chess and bezique. To Dee, in her time of 
ordeal and sacrifice, it was a relief without which she 
must have broken to have the invalid taken off her hands 
for a good part of every day. 

Twice daily Pat came over from the Knoll, often stay¬ 
ing to luncheon on her morning visit and returning directly 
after dinner to make a fourth hand at bridge whenever 
James was in fit condition to play. As a matter of course, 
Scott took her home and ostensibly left her while he went 
for a long walk alone, before returning to the James place. 
In reality those hours were spent with Pat in her con¬ 
servatory. 

“When are you going to get tired of me?” she asked 
pertly, one gold-studded night of stars and soft winds as 
they sat together at the open window of the secluded 
room. She was perched on the arm of his chair, her hand 
overhanging the back to touch the short curls at his 
'temple. He drew her palm downward and spoke with his 
lips lightly pressed upon it. 

“When that planet yonder tumbles down out of the 
sky into your lap.” 

“But you ought to, you know. They always do.” 

“Still obsessed by the movies,” he interpreted play¬ 
fully. “This is the real world we’re living in.” 


270 FLAMING YOUTH 

“Sometimes I wonder if it is. It doesn’t seem too 
real.” 

“You’re a phantasm yourself,” said he jealously. “I 
never quite grasp and hold you.” 

“Yet I belong to you, don’t I? Or is that just a— 
a silly form of words that hasn’t any real meaning?” 

“It’s a phrase. You belong to yourself. You always 
will. There’s that quality of the eternally unattainable, 
the eternally virginal, about you.” 

“Is there? I love to have you say that! Do you truly 
think it, Cary?” 

“In the depths of my heart—where you live.” 

“But it wouldn’t be so if we were married.” 

* “It would always be so, my darling.” 

Ever keenly interested in her own character and its 
reflex upon others, she took this under thoughtful con¬ 
sideration. 

“I’ve never felt that I could really belong to anybody. 
Not even to you. If I could think it, then perhaps I’d 
want to marry you. Does that mean that I don’t love 
you, Cary? Or what?” 

“Not as I love you,” he replied with gloomy patience. 
“It means that I’ve got to wait.” 

“Here?” she flashed at him with her bewildering smile. 
“But you’ve been threatening to go away again.” 

“I ought to,” he groaned. “I just haven’t the will 
power. It would be like giving up hope to leave you now.” 

“Poor darling!” But there was a touch of mockery in 
bier pity. 

“If it weren’t so terribly dangerous for you.” 

Her proud little head went up. “I told you long ago 
that I always did what I wanted. If I take a chance, I’m 
willing to pay for it. I’m not afraid.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 271 

“Because you’ve never suffered. You’ve never had to 
take punishment.” 

“Have you?” 

“I’m taking it now, in the thought of our separation. 
Pat, for God’s sake let me get free, if it is only to be 
ready, in case-” 

“No; no; no!” she denied vehemently. “I won’t be— 
captured, compelled. You can go if you want to, as 
soon as you want to.” 

“Pat!” 

“Yes; I know.” Her lips brushed his cheek in sweet 
contrition. “That was mean of me. But I just—don’t 
—want—to—marry you.” She spaced the words with 
rhythmic deliberation. “I don’t want to marry any¬ 
body. . . . And have a lot of kids. . . . And look like 
Con does now. She waddles . . . . Cary, were you her 
lover?” she demanded abruptly. 

“No!” 

“I couldn’t bear it if you had been. But you’d say 
that anyway, wouldn’t you? Even to me?” 

“It’s quite true. I never was.” 

“If anyone asked you that about me you’d swear by 
all your gods you weren’t. Wouldn’t you?” 

“Yes.” 

“You’d lie about it? I hate to think of your lying. I 
wonder whether I would if it was put up to me or whether 
I’d admit that we are lovers.” She brooded darkly for a 
moment over the word. “I didn’t mean to be, you know,” 
she added naively. 

“Whatever fault there was is mine,” he claimed hoarsely. 
“If there is any just God-” 

She slipped her fingers over his lips, cutting him short. 
“Don’t, Cary. Don’t say ‘if.’ Of course there is.” 

“Then He will hold me responsible; not you.” 




272 


FLAMING YOUTH 


She rose, giving her shoulders the quaint, sliding wriggle 
with which she was wont to slough off, symbolically, prob- 
lems too troublesome for solution. “Oh, if those things 
are going to happen, they happen,” she muttered. “That’s 
the fate part of it. But I do suppose we can’t go on 
forever. We’ll crash, some way.” 

“Does anyone suspect? Dee?” 

“I don’t think so. She’s got troubles enough of her 
own these days. If it’s anyone, it’s Con. She’s been 
asking some snoopy kind of questions.” 

“What questions?” 

“Oh, I don’t know. I told her to go to the devil; that 
I was over twelve, and she told me I’d better remember 
particularly that I was.” 

“I don’t like that,” said he. 

“Oh, well; I don’t like it much, myself. But what can 
she do ?” 

“Talk.” 

“Not outside the family. Con isn’t that kind. She 
might tell Fred.” 

“That would be a pleasant complication,” he observed 
grimly. 

“There will be more and more complications all the 
time,” she fretted. “If you only weren’t married!” 

“But I thought-” he began eagerly. 

“Then there wouldn’t be any kick. We could be sup¬ 
posed to be engaged. I suppose we would be engaged!” 
she added brightly, as if a new thought had struck her. 

“Being engaged implies being married eventually,” he 
pointed out. 

“Not these days,” she retorted. “It doesn’t hold you 
up for anything and we could snap out of it when we got 
good and ready. Only—this isn’t the kind of thing you 
can snap out of, is it?” A cloud darkened the vivacity of 



FLAMING YOUTH 273 

her face. “We’re terrible boobs, Cary. . . . Let’s stop 
it.” , , 

“That’s wholly in yonr hands, dear love.” 

“Yes,” she said discontentedly; “you’ve always put 
everything up to me; let me go my own way—that’s why 
I’ve gone so far. I wonder if you knew that was the way 
to get me. You’re so dam’ clever. . . . Like what’s-his- 
name—Mephistoph—no, Macchiavelli, wasn’t it?” She 
dropped to the floor in front of him, clasped her hands 
over his knee, turned upward a shadowy and bewitching 
face, speaking in a lowered voice. “Listen, dear. Next 
week I’m going back to Philadelphia, to finish out my visit 
with Cissie. But—I won’t go to Cissie’s, not till the next 
day. We’ll have that time together; that’ll be our good¬ 
bye. And then you must go away.” 

“If you wish it so,” he assented steadily. 

“I don't wish it so. But it’s got to come some time. 
[You say so yourself.” 

“Yes; it’s got to come some time. Unless-” 

“I know the unless. I don’t say I’ll never send for you 
to come back. I might.” 

“I’ll never come back except with my freedom. And 
if you send for me it must be for good and all.” 

“I wish I could, Cary. I wish I were sure,” she said 
wistfully. She jumped to her feet. “Tell me good-night,” 
she commanded, holding out her arms. “And you’re to 
come early to-morrow and take me for a long walk.” 

Overnight, luck, which had so befriended the lovers, 
turned against them. They returned from their morn¬ 
ing’s tramp, weary but elate with the vigour of strong sun¬ 
shine and woodland air. Pat, her glorious eyes welling 
light, paused by the open library window. 

“Is there anything in the world that we haven’t talked 
to a finish to-day, Cary?” she demanded, laughing. 



274 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Nothing, dearest.” 

“Yet to-morrow we’ll have just as much to talk about 
as if we’d never spoken a word to each other. It’s rather 
wonderful, isn’t it? What makes us that way?” 

“Companionship. The rarest thing in life or love.” 

She swung herself in by the window. “Come on, com¬ 
panion,” she invited. As he followed, she detached a few 
sprays from the huge cluster of wild purple violets at her 
belt, and set them in his coat. “Decoration of compan¬ 
ionship,” she said. “And”—she stretched up and kissed 
his lips—“reward for a happy morning.” 

There was a stifled exclamation. Constance rose from 
the depths of the big arm chair facing away from them 
and confronted the pair. Pat burst into harsh laughter. 

“Trapped!” she exclaimed. 

Constance’s face with its strained, expectant, appre¬ 
hensive expression of imminent motherhood, was white. 
“Pat, I think you’d better leave me with Mr. Scott,” she 
said. 

“I don’t,” snapped Pat. “If you’ve got anything to 
say, say it.” Her eyes burned sombrely, angrily. She 
was furious with her sister for having surprised her. 

A puzzled, helpless look came over Constance’s face. “I 

wouldn’t have believed-” she began lamentably. “How 

long has this been going on?” 

“None of your business,” returned Pat coolly. 

“It will be father’s business. I shall phone him now.” 

“Wait, Connie,” put in Scott with quiet authoritative¬ 
ness. “Wouldn’t it be as well to consider consequences 
before making more trouble than can perhaps be un¬ 
done?” 

“You’re afraid, are you? Well, you can run.” 

“I shall stay here, if you phone, until Mr. Fentriss 
comes.” 



FLAMING YOUTH 275 

Constance swayed, irresolute, uncertain on Eer feet. 
“How far has this gone?” she muttered. 

Scott rallied his defences. “You’re not to think that 
this is just a casual, cheap flirtation,” he said. “If I 
could make you understand how deeply and honestly I 
love Pat-” 

“Honestly!” echoed Constance with scorn. 

“I won’t split words with you. And for myself I’ve 
no excuses to make. I ought to have held myself better 
in hand. But as for this sort of thing—my kissing Pat— 
it’s the first time and it will be-” 

“Oh, piffle!” Pat’s reckless voice broke in. “Tell her 
the truth, Cary.” 

Constance looked from one to the other. Her lips 
quivered, curled down at the corners like a grieved baby’s. 
She began to sob in short, quick, strangled catches of the 
breath. Suddenly a dreadful look convulsed her face. She 
pressed her hands down upon her abdomen. 

“Oh!” she cried. “Ah-h-h-h. The pain! Pat! I’m-” 

Scott jumped to catch her, barely in time to break the 
fall. He eased her into the chair. Pat was beside him 
instantly. 

“Phone for Bobs. Quick! Tell him to get Dr. Courcey. 
No. You go for Courcey, it’ll save time. Second house 
around the corner. Tell him to bring everything. All 
his instruments and a nurse. Don’t come back. I’ll 
write you.” 

As he hurried to the door he heard a shriek, then Pat’s 
strong, soothing voice: 

“All right, Con, old girl. The doctor’ll be here in five 
minutes.” 

Such was their parting, one of life’s sardonic emenda¬ 
tions to the plots and plans of lovers. 





7 


CHAPTER XXIX 

“Some kind of internal explosion has taken place in our 
little family, dear one (wrote Robert Osterhout to his 
dead love) ; and is still taking place, which is rather a 
deliberate method for an explosion. They are keeping me 
oiit of it; even Pat will not confide in me. Therefore I 
infer that it is not so much her trouble as the others’. 
Con’s baby is now six months old; she had a bad time of 
it but the son is‘a lusty creature. About the time of his 
birth there was a quarrel between Con and Pat not wholly 
made up yet. But while Con was so ill, Pat stood by, a 
tower of strength. From*the way in which she gave up 
everything to look after Con and her household, I was 
almost ready to suspect a touch of remorse. But what 
about? There was the contemporaneous phenomenon of 
Cary Scott going away.so abruptly, quite without expla¬ 
nation. I ask myself whether it is possible that the old 
fire flamed up between Con and him and Pat was in some 
way involved. A tangled skein! 

“Dee troubles me, too. She has grown so subdued and 
inert. Her devotion to James would explain it, to a 
casual observer. It isn’t enough for me. There is some¬ 
thing else. She withdraws from me, too; but she has 
always given me less of her confidence than the others. 
It is a sort of shyness, and at times it hurts. I so long 
to help her. But you can’t help another person who lives 
in a fourth dimension by herself. 

“Pat is back in the rush and whirl of things, going 
faster than ever, but she does not seem to be getting as 
much fun out of it as of old. She is as little comprehen¬ 
sible as ever.” 


276 


FLAMING YOUTH 


277 


To Pat herself, her mental processes were difficult of 
comprehension. It was now six months since she and 
Cary Scott had so strangely and inconsequentially parted 
and he had gone back to Europe. On the whole, she did 
very well without him; but that there was a gap she could 
not deny to herself. Being uncompromisingly what she 
was, she filled it with other masculine interests. Rather 
to her surprise she did not find herself specially tempted 
to venture upon forbidden ground with any other man. 
The barriers once down, she had supposed that self- 
control would be more difficult. But curiosity is an impor¬ 
tant component part of sex-attraction to the untried, 
and her curiosity was appeased. Perhaps, too, Scott had 
been right in imputing to her an instinctive quality of 
virginity, constantly at war against but not incompatible 
with her passionate temperament. 

Certainly the substitute interests seemed dull and insuf¬ 
ficient as compared with her association with Scott. At 
times she missed intolerably that unique understanding 
and companionship which he had given her, and these 
times became more instead of less frequent as the weeks 
lengthened out, which was both unexpected and perturb¬ 
ing. She was seriously annoyed with him, too, because he 
had respected religiously her injunction against writing, 
and when, three months after his departure, she herself 
had written lifting the embargo, he had returned, after a 
long silence, a single sentence: 

“When you send for me I will come; but you must be 
ready to accept all and give all.” 

Choosing to interpret this as an attempt to bully her 
she was properly wrathful. By way of logical reprisal 
(though how it was to affect him she would have found 
it difficult to say) she “stepped on the gas,” as she would 


278 


FLAMING YOUTH 


Have put it, and speeded up an already sufficient pace. 
Local eruptions followed. 

“All the old cats are squalling their heads off at me, H 
she complained to Osterhout. 

“What would you expect?” said the philosophical 
doctor. 

“Of course you’d take that side,” retorted the aggrieved 
Pat. “Why should they?” 

“For one item, the broken Yandegrift-Mercer engage¬ 
ment.” 

“I didn’t do it!” disclaimed Pat. But she dimpled a 
little. 

“You’re popularly credited with having had a hand 
in it, not to # say a face.” 

“Don’t be coarse, Bobs. What right had Bess Vande- 
grift to be sticking her blotchy face between the cur- 
itains-” 

“What right had you to be kissing Bess’s best young 
feller ?” 

“Liar yourself, Bobs! I didn’t kiss him. He kissed 
me.” 

“It’s a fine distinction. Maybe a shade too fine for 
Bess.” 

“I haven’t kissed a man,” declared Pat virtuously, 
“that is to say really kissed, since—well, never mind that,” 
with hasty but belated discretion. “I didn’t want Harry 
to kiss me. Troo-woo-wooly, Bobs. Though I did sus¬ 
pect that he might get interesting and try. . . . She’s a 
sob, anyway.” 

“Then, there’s Stanley Johnston-” 

“All off. Tackles too hard!” said Pat. 

“And Mark Denby. You keep him rushing back and 
forth between here and Baltimore like a demented drum¬ 
mer.” 




FLAMING YOUTH 279 

“Oh, Mark’s like the Pig that forgot he was Educated. 
He doesn’t count.” 

“Who does count at the present moment?” 

“Nobody. That’s the big trouble,” said Pat fretfully. 
“They none of ’em give me any thrill. I’m bored, Bobs.” 

“Pose of youth,” opined Bobs. 

Herein he was wrong. Pat really was bored, though 
she would not admit to herself the reason, deep and effec¬ 
tive in the background of her willful soul. Life was flat, 
stale, tasteless. Men were either unenterprising guinea- 
pigs or bellowing rhinoceroses. Women were cats. She 
loathed the tame and monotonous world. It was bore¬ 
dom, combined with a provocative accidental discovery, 
that led her to the reckless adventure of the Washington 
Heights flat and Edna Carroll. 

In an earlier age the Fentriss family would have re¬ 
ferred to Edna Carroll with hushed voices, if at all, as 
“that woman.” In this enlightened and tolerant time she 
was humorously characterised by the three girls as 
“Ralph’s flossie.” Little was known of her. She lived 
somewhere outside the social pale and Fentriss’s liaison 
with her had endured for many years. Constance was 
sure that she was of the flamboyant, roystering, chorus- 
girl type. Dee inclined to the soft and babyish siren. 
Pat speculated rangingly, and had more than once endeav¬ 
oured to pump Osterhout, with notable lack of success. 
From some unlocatable purlieu of gossip had issued the 
rumour that Ralph Fentriss was going to mari’ 3 7 her, 
perhaps had already done so secretly. Constance was 
outraged. Dee was cynically amused, but skeptical. Pat 
was hotly excited. 

Entering the city by one of the upper ferries one day 
in search of a dressmaker’s assistant, recreant in the 
matter of a dinner gown, the youngest daughter was 


?so 


FLAMING YOUTH 


startled to see her father’s car drawn up opposite a pleas¬ 
ant looking apartment house on a quiet side street. At 
three-thirty in the afternoon! The truth leapt to her 
mind. Profusely blooming flowers made beautiful the 
third floor window ledge; there, Pat decided, was the nest 
of the bird. Fearing that her father might emerge and 
find her, she hastened away. 

On the following morning, full of delightful tremors 
and keen anticipations—for this would be something, 
indeed, to tell the girls—she returned and pressed the 
third button in the entry. The light click of the release 
almost sent her scuttling out, but she gathered her reso¬ 
lution, composed a demure face for herself, and mounted 
the stairs. In the top hallway stood a slim, tailor-made 
woman with glasses pushed up on her forehead. Pat at 
once made up her mind that she was attractive in an 
alert, bird-like way. 

“Whom are you looking for?”* asked the woman pleas¬ 
antly. 

Pat liked her voice. “Does Mrs. Fentriss live here?” 

“Who?” said the woman in a tone which made Pat 
regret that she had chosen that particular form of 
opening. 

Pat faltered out the enquiry again, not knowing what 
else to do. The other’s brown and dancing eyes grew for' 
midably cold. 

“Why do 3 r ou ask for Mrs. Fentriss?” 

“I thought this was where she lived.” 

“There is no Mrs. Fentriss here.” 

“Perhaps I’ve got the wrong apartment.” 

“No. I think you have the right one. Who are you?” 

Entire frankness appeared to the intruder the method 
of sense and safety. “I’m Pat. Patricia Fentriss.” 

“I thought so. By what right do you come here?” 


FLAMING YOUTH 281 

Two tiny spots of reddish flame shone in the wine-dark 
eyes. Pat decided that she was very attractive. 

“Please don’t be angry with me.” 

“You’re hardly here as an emissary of the family, I 
suppose.” 

“No. I—I just came.” 

“In that case hadn’t you better just go again?” 

“If you tell me to,” said Pat, downcast and humble. 

The other hesitated. “I can’t conceive what you mean 
by this visit,” she said with severity, into which, however, 
had crept a mitigating quality. “Was it just vulgar 
curiosity?” 

Pat nodded so vigorously that her hair flicked forward 
about her face like wind-whipped silk ribbons. 

“You’re frank, at any rate. I like that.” Abruptly 
she stepped back. “As you’re here, come in.” 

Pat obeyed. “You’re awfully good to let me.” 

“Am I? That remains to be seen.” She led the way 
to an airy, daintily furnished front room, a conspicuous 
feature of which was a big arm chair with a drawing 
board across the arms. 

“What’s that?” asked Pat with lively curiosity. 

“My work.” 

“Oh! Are you an artist?” 

“Of a sort. I make fashion drawings.” 

“How diverting!” Pat was recovering herself. “Can’t 
you go on working while we talk?” 

“Are we going to talk?” The corners of the firm 
mouth crinkled up, a dimple affirmed its existence, the 
brown eyes twinkled, and Pat incontinently and most 
improperly fell in love with her hostess. 

“I think you’re too delightful!” 

“I can be quite otherwise, on occasion—to impertinent 
people.” 


282 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Don’t scare me again,” begged Pat. “I won’t be 
impertinent. Though I want to be, terribly.” 

“As that is what you came for, perhaps you’d better 
be. Why did you ask for Mrs. Fentriss?” 

“Isn’t that what—what you’re called?” 

“Certainly not.” 

An inspiration struck Pat. “We heard that you’d 
married Dad.” 

The hostess replaced her glasses, seated herself, and 
began to ink in a sketch. “Did you?” 

“Is it true?” 

“No. We are not married.” 

No good, that line. A chilling thought followed. “He 
isn’t likely to be coming here, is he?” 

“Why? Are you afraid of being caught?” 

“I can’t think of anything more poisonous.” 

“Don’t be*alarmed. He couldn’t get in if he did come.” 

Pat searched her mind for movie evidence. “Hasn’t 
he got a key?” 

“No. Why not be honest and ask directly what’s in 
your mind?” 

“I—I don’t know how,” confessed the visitor. 

“For a singularly forward young person you don’t 
get on very fast. How old are*you?” 

“Nineteen. But I know everything about—about 
everything.” 

“If you don’t it isn’t for lack of enterprise,” was the 
grim reply. “And what you don’t know, you suspect. 
In this case your suspicions are quite correct. But it 
doesn’t follow that Ralph—that your father comes and 
goes at will here, in my place.” There was the slightest 
emphasis on the possessive. 

“Oh! I thought they—they always had—had a key, 
and—and-” 



FLAMING YOUTH 


283 


“And paid the rent, and filled the place with luxury and 
orchids, cigarettes and champagne. You’ve been reading 
cheap novels. The rotten-minded little fiction writers 
don’t know everything. They don’t know anything about 
women.” 

Pat leaned forward. “Are you going to marry Dad?” 

The artist’s face hardened. “You were sent here to 
find that out. Well, then, I am.” 

“I’m glad,” said Pat simply and sincerely. 

The older woman took off her glasses, rose, walked 
across to the lounge where Pat was seated and set her 
delicate hands on the girl’s shoulders, staring into her 
face with an inscrutable expression. “Why do you say 
that ?” 

“Because it’s true. I’m crazy about you—already.” 

The other sat down limply. “What kind of a person 
are you?” 

“An honest one.” 

“Then I’ll be, too. I’m not going to marry Ralph. I 
can’t. I’ve got a husband. He’s no good. I haven’t 
lived with him for years. I had a devil of a life. I was 
going to kill myself when I met Ralph.” 

“Were you so poor?” asked Pat sympathetically. 

“Poor? Do you think it was a question of money 
with me that took me to Ralph?” retorted the other with 
slow anger. 

“No. I don’t know why I said that. But you’re so 
young.” 

“So is he,” was the defiant reply. “He’s eternally 
young. That’s whht I love in him. I loved him the first 
time I ever saw him and I’ve never stopped. But if you’ve 
come here looking for a common kept-woman-” 

“I haven’t. Oh, I haven’t!” broke in Pat, squirming. 

“Anyway, you know all about me now. All except my 



284 FLAMING YOUTH 

name, Edna Carroll. What are you going to tell you* 
family?” 

“Not a word.” 

“Aren’t you? You’re a strange little witch.” 

“Do you like me a little?” asked Pat, slant-eyed and 
demure. 

“Yes; I do. You’re very like Ralph in some ways.” 

“Then may I come again?” 

“No.” » ' fl |||] 

“Why not ?” 

“I should have thought you might understand without 
my drawing you a diagram.” 

“Conventional stuff!” scoffed the girl. “How do you 
get that way? I’m coming anyway-jr-Edna.” 

Edna Carroll laughed uncertainly. “I’m insane to let 
you. But I’d love to have you. What would your father, 
think ?” 

“He’s not going to think at all. We won’t give him 
the chance. Will you ask me to your parties?” 

“How do you know I give parties ?” 

“You’re the kind that always draws people around 
them. Besides,” added the shrewd Pat, “there’s a violin 
and a clarinet on the piano. I don’t suppose you play 
them all. And I’m mad about music.” 

“Inheritance,” murmured Edna softly. She let her 
darkling glance rest on the piano bench where Ralph Fen- 
triss had so often sat to make his music. “Very well. 
I’ll ask you sometime.” 

She was as good as her word. It was there that Pat 
met Leo Stenak. 


CHAPTER XXX 

The episode between Leo Stenak and Patricia Fentriss 
was headlong as a torrent. She heard him before she saw 
him; heard, rather, his violin, expression and interpreta¬ 
tion of his innermost self. The raucous sweetness of his 
tone, which he overemphasises and sentimentalises, and 
which is the cardinal defect of his striking and uneven 
style, floated out to her as she stood, astonished, in the 
exterior hallway of Edna Carroll’s flat. 

When it died into silence, she supposed that the num¬ 
ber was over and entered just as he was resuming. Her 
first impression was of a plump, sallow, carelessly dressed 
youth with hair almost as shaggy as her own, and the 
most wildly luminous eyes she had ever looked into, who 
turned upon her an infuriated regard and at once point-, 
edly dropped his bow. His savage regard followed her; 
while she crossed the room to speak to her hostess. 

This was no way to treat high-spirited Pat. Quite 
deliberately she took off gloves and wrap, handed them 
to the nearest young man and remarked to the violinist: 

“It’s very nice of you to wait. I’m quite fixed now, 
thank you.” 

A vicious snort was the only response. The accom¬ 
panist who had trailed along a bar or two before appre¬ 
ciating the interruption, took up his part, and the melody 
again filled the air. In spite of her exacerbated feelings, 
Pat recognised the power and distinction of the perform¬ 
ance. Nevertheless, she refrained from joining in the 

applause which followed the final note. 

285 


286 


FLAMING YOUTH 


At once the musician crossed to her, which was exactly 
what she had intended. 

“You don’t like music,” he accused, glowering. 

“I love it,” retorted Pat. 

“Then you don’t like my music.” 

“Better than your manners.” 

“I care nothing for manners. I am not a society 
puppet.” 

“If you were, perhaps you would have waited to be 
presented.” 

“I am Leo Stenak,” said he impressively. 

If not unduly impressed, Pat was at least interested. 
She remembered the name from having heard Cary Scott 
speak of a youthful violinist named Stenak who had ap¬ 
peared at a Red Cross concert the year before and for 
whom he had predicted a real career, “if he can get over 
his cubbish egotism and self-satisfaction.” 

“I’ve heard of vou,” she remarked. 

“The whole world will hear of me presently,” he replied 
positively. “Where did you hear?” 

“From a friend of mine, Cary Scott.” 

Stenak searched his memory. “I never heard of him. 
An amateur?” 

“Yes.” 

“Amateurs don’t count,” was his superb pronounce¬ 
ment. 

“Any friend of mine counts,” said Pat coldly, and 
turned her back upon him. He flounced away exactly like 
a disgruntled schoolgirl. 

“Don’t mind Leo, Pat,” said her hostess, coming over 
to her with a smile of amusement. “He’s a spoiled child; 
almost as much spoiled as you are.” 

“I don’t mind him,” returned the girl equably, but 
inside she was tingling with the sense of combat and of th? 


FLAMING YOUTH 


287 


man’s intense and salient personality. She was sure that 
he would come back to her. 

Late in the evening he did, with a manifest effect of 
its being against his judgment and intention, which de¬ 
lighted her mischievous soul. Most of the others had 
left. 

“They tell me you sing, Miss Fentriss,” he began 
abruptly. 

“A little,” replied Pat, who had been devoting what 
she regarded as hard and grinding work to her music for 
a six-month. 

“Rag-time, I suppose.” Contemptuously. 

“And others!” 

“Know the Chanson de FlorianV' 

“Of course.” 

“Well, it’s light sort of trash, but it has a melody. 
I’ve written my own obbligato to it. If you like I’ll play 
it with you.” 

“I don’t like, at all, thank you.” 

“You owe me something for spoiling my andante when 
you came in. I played wretchedly after that. You did 
something to me; I was too conscious of you to get back 
into the music. Won’t you sing for me?” His manner 
was quite amenable now; his splendid eyes held and made 
appeal to her. 

“But I’m an amateur,” she answered, still obdurate. 

“And amateurs don’t count.” 

“It isn’t every amateur I’d ask. Come on!” He caught 
up his violin. “Ready, Carlos?” he said to the accom¬ 
panist. 

Pat gave her little, reckless laugh. “Oh, very well!” 

She sang. It seemed to her that she was in exception¬ 
ally good voice, inspired and upheld by the golden stream 


288 


FLAMING YOUTH 


of counter-melody which surged from the violin. At the 
close he looked at her intently and in silence. 

“Well?” queried Pat, thrilling with expectancy of mer¬ 
ited praise. 

“You sing rottenly,” he replied with entire seriousness. 

“Thank you!” Pat’s sombre eyes smarted with tears 
of mortification. 

“But you have a voice. Some of the notes—pure music. 
Your method—horrible. You should practice.” 

“I’ve been practicing. A terrible lot.” 

“Pffooh! Fiddle-faddling. You amateurs don’t know 
what work is!” 

“Do you think my voice is worth working with?” 

“Perhaps. It has beauty. You are beautiful, yourself. 
Where do you live?” 

Pat laughed. “What’s the big idea, Mr. Stenak?” 

“I will take you home when you go. I wish to talk 
to you.” 

“I’m not going home. I’m staying with friends down¬ 
town.” 

“Then I will take you there. May I?” 

“Yes; if you’ll play once more for me first.” 

Though it was quite a distance to her destination, 
Stenak did not offer to get a taxi. He observed that as 
the night was pleasant, it would be nice to walk part 
way, to which Pat, somewhat surprised, assented. Imme¬ 
diately, and with no more self-consciousness than an 
animal, he became intimately autobiographical. He told 
her that he was a Russian, a philosophic anarchist, with 
no belief in or use for society’s instituted formulas: mar¬ 
riage, laws, government—nothing but the eternal right of 
the individual to express himself to the utmost in his 
chosen medium of life. All his assertiveness had left him; 
he talked honestly and interestingly. Pat caught glimpses 


FLAMING YOUTH 


289 


of a personality as simple and, in some ways, as innocent 
as a child’s; credulous, eager, resolute, confident, trust¬ 
ing, and illumined with a lambent inner fire. 

“I was rude to you at first,” he confessed. “I am sorry. 
But I could not help it. I am like that.” 

“You shouldn’t be,” she chided. 

“Tell me what I should be and I will be it,” he declared. 
“You could make me anything. When you came into the 
room, even though I was angry, there was a flash of 
understanding between us. You felt it, too?” 

“I felt something,” admitted she. “But I was angry, 
myself. How silly of you to give yourself the airs of 
genius!” 

“I have genius,” he averred quietly. 

Such profound conviction was in his tone that Pat was 
ready to believe him. As they turned to the elevated 
stairs he asked: 

“Will you come to my studio soon for music?” 

“Who else will be there?” 

“Nobody. Just you and I.” 

“No. I couldn’t do that. Ask Mrs. Carroll and I’ll 
come.” 

“Why should you not come alone? Are you afraid of 
me? That would be strange.” 

“Of course I’m not afraid of you. But-” 

“I will not make love to you. I will only make music 
to you.” 

Pat reflected that it might well prove to be much the 
same thing. When she left him it was with a half promise. 

Before the week was out she had gone to his studio. 
Within the fortnight she had been there half a dozen 
times. She was drawn back to him by the lure of his mar¬ 
vellous music—“I play for no one as I play for you,” 
he said—and by the fascination of his strange and single- 



FLAMING YOUTH 


£90 

minded personality. Not only did he play for Her, but 
he made her sing, experimenting with her voice, pointing 
out her errors, instructing her, laughing to shame her 
impatiences and little mutinies, himself patient with the 
endurance and insight of the true artist. Ever responsive 
to genuine quality of whatever kind, Pat let herself become 
more and more involved in imagination and vagrant pos¬ 
sibilities. 

In the matter of love-making he was faithful to his 
word. While she was his guest he never so much as 
offered to kiss her, rather to her resentful disappointment, 
to tell the truth. But when, one November afternoon, he 
was walking with her to where her car was waiting, he 
said without preface: 

“Colleen, I love you.” He had taken to calling her 
Colleen after hearing her sing an Irish ballad of that 
title. Pat liked it. 

She gave her veiled and sombre glance. “Do you really 
love me?” 

“You know it. And you?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“I think you do.” 

“I think it would be very stupid of me to fall in love 
with you.” 

“Why?” 

“We’re not the same kind at all. Some day I shall 
marry and settle down and be good and happy and cor¬ 
rect, ever after. You don’t believe in marriage.” 

“I believe in love. And in faith to be kept between two 
who love. Don’t you?” 

“When you play to me I do. You could make me 
believe anything then.” 

“Then come back, Colleen, and let me play to you.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 291 

“No,” said Pat, in self-protective panic. She could 
not make herself look at him. 

“When are you coming again?” 

“I don’t know,” she answered, and popped into her car 
as if it were sanctuary. Wayward thoughts of his flame- 
deep eyes, his persuasive speech, the subtle passion of his 
music made restless many nights for her thereafter. Edna 
Carroll, suspecting the progress of the affair, questioned 
her. 

“What are you up to with Leo?” 

“Just playing around.” 

“With fire?” 

“He’s got it all right, the fire. I wonder if it’s the 
divine fire?” 

“How seriously are you thinking of him, Pat?” Edna’s 
piquant face was anxious. “You wouldn’t marry him?” 

“Are you afraid for me?” 

“No. For him.” 

“You’re too flattering!” 

“I’m in earnest. You’d ruin him. You’re too selfish 
and too capricious to be the mate of a genius. And he’s 
going to be a great genius, Pat, if he keeps himself 
straight and undivided. You’d divide him. He’s quite 
mad over you; told me so himself.” 

“How do you know I’m not mad over him?” 

“God forbid! It would never last with you. Because 
he isn’t your kind, you’d grow away from him and he’d 
be wretched and that would react on his music.” 

“And you think more of his music than of me,” pouted 
Pat. 

The artist in Edna Carroll, humble and slight in degree 
though it were, spoke out the true creed of all artistry 
which is one. “Not of him. Of his genius. Where you 


292 FLAMING YOUTH 

find genius you have to think of it and cherish it above 
everything.” 

“Above love?” said Pat. She understood enough of 
this pure passion to be a little daunted. 

“Above everything,” reaffirmed the other. 

“You needn’t be afraid. He doesn’t want to marry 
me.” 

“Whether he does or not, it’s a dangerous fascination 
for both of you.” 

Vacillating days followed for Pat. There was a week 
in which she did not trust herself to see Leo. He tele¬ 
phoned and wrote frantically. She did not answer his 
letters. But one day she met him fortuitously on the 
street, and went to the studio with him. There he broke 
all bounds, poured out the fire of his heart upon her: he 
loved her, wanted her, needed her; she was part of his 
genius, without her he could never reach his full artistic 
stature. She loved him, too; he felt it; he knew it; he 
defied her to deny it, and she found that, under the com¬ 
pulsion of his presence, she could not. He was going to 
Boston on the following day, for a week. Would she come 
and join him, if only for a day? She could make up some 
tale for her family; pretend to be staying with a friend. 
And he would take her to a great singing-master, the 
greatest, a friend of his whom he wanted to hear and try 
her voice. Wouldn’t she trust herself to him and come? 

Pat denied him vehemently. But she was stirred and 
troubled to her own passionate depths'by his stormy yet 
controlled passion. He had not so much as touched he? 
hand. 

In the hallway, as they went out, she turned to him 
and yielded herself into his arms. 

“Oh, well!” she murmured, her voice fluttering in her 


FLAMING YOUTH 293 

throat. C< I don’t care. I’ll come. Only—don’t rush me. 
Give me time.” 

They parted with the one kiss of that embrace. In¬ 
stantly she had agreed, the spirit of adventure rose within 
her. She was recklessly jubilant. 

Three days of alternating morbid self-examination and 
flushed excitement followed. She looked forward to the 
meeting not so much with conscious physical anticipation 
as with the sense of something vivid and bold and new 
coming, as relief, into the too monotonous pattern of 
life. 

The rendezvous was arranged by letter. She was to 
take a late afternoon train, and he was to be at the Back 
Bay to meet her. 

Looking from the window as the train pulled in she 
saw him restlessly pacing the platform on the wrong side. 
He had on a new overcoat which did not fit him and was 
incongruously glossy as compared with his untidy hair 
and rumpled soft hat. As his coat slumped open, she 
was conscious of an unpressed suit underneath. Prob- 
ably greasy! At the moment he dropped one of the brand 
new gloves in his hand—she could not recall ever having 
seen him wear gloves—and bent awkwardly to recover it. 
His head protruded; his collar, truant from its retaining 
rear button, hunched mussily up, and she looked down 
with a dismal revulsion of the flesh, upon an expanse of 
sallow, shaven neck. 

Unbidden, vividly intrusive, there rose to the eyes of 
her quickening imagination the image of Cary Scott, 
always impeccable of dress and carriage, hard-knit of 
frame, exhaling the atmosphere of smooth skin and hard 
muscle. In fancy she breathed the very aroma of him, 
clean, tingling, masculine, and felt again the imperative 
claim of his arms. 


294 


FLAMING YOUTH 


From the groping figure below her, glamour fell like 
a decaying garment. She forgot the genius, the inner 
fire; beheld only the outer shell, uncouth, pulpy, nauseous 

to her senses. 

With cheeks afire and chin high, she walked up the 
aisle, turned into the ladies’ room and found safe refuge 
there, until the train moved on. At the South Station 
she took the next train back to New York. The image of 
Cary Scott bore her unsolicited company. She went 
straight to Edna Carroll with the story. Edna was 
alarmed, relieved, puzzled. 

“But, after going so far, why—why—why?” she de¬ 
manded. 

In response Pat delivered one of those final and damn¬ 
ing sentences upon man which women express only to 
women: 

“When I saw him that way I knew that his socks would 
be dirty.” 


CHAPTER XXXT 


“IV off of men,** confidently wrote Pat in her diary. 
‘Sphere’s nothing to it for me. From now on I’m going 
to he so nice and careful and mind-your-steppy that the 
place won’t know me. All the old cats in Dorrisdale will 
purr when I come around. I think I shall take up slum¬ 
ming. Anyway, no more flutters for little Pat. I’ve 
reformed.” 

In proof of which she comported herself with great cir¬ 
cumspection for a space of several months, to the surprise 
of all and the discomfiture of sundry amatory youths of 
her circle. The word went about that Pat Fentriss was 
slowing up. While as much fun as ever in a crowd, she 
was less approachable in a corner. Pat, her peculiar radi¬ 
ance deepening and ripening, was content with the crowd. 
Her quickening intelligence was impatient of the callow¬ 
ness and shallowness of her contemporaries among the 
youth of the suburb. 

To fill her time a new and purely unselfish interest had 
come into her life; not so showy as the slumming which 
she had considered, but of far more practical beneficence. 
At the time of T. Jameson James’s accident she had 
devoted herself with centred enthusiasm to the sufferer 
and his household. Later as the tragedy became a com¬ 
monplace to her mind, she drifted wide of it. It was 
natural to the shallow fervours and shifting interests of 
her youth that she should unconsciously drop out of mind 
that silent and shadowed personality in the big house 
across the town. When she did think of it, temporary 
self-reproach would send her there two or three times in 


296 


FLAMING YOUTH 


a week. But there seemed to be “nothing that she could 
do”; and she would drop away again. 

It was an episode of one of these visits that changed 
her attitude. On her arrival Dee had told her that Jim 
was probably asleep; she could creep up softly and see; 
the attendant who pushed the wheeled-chair was out. Tip¬ 
toeing to the open door Pat peered in at the crack. T. 
Jameson James lay very stiff and still on the window 
divan, apparently sleeping. Pat was just about to turn 
away with a sense of relief when she noticed the hand 
nearest her. It was so tightly clenched that the flesh 
around the nails was white. His head turned quite gradu¬ 
ally, bringing the contour of the face into view. She saw 
that the eyes were closed, but in the corners two drops of 
water gathered and grew, slowly, slowly, as if wrung 
from the very core of a soul’s repressed agony. The 
drops broke, darted, trickled down like rain along a win- 
dowpane. A slight shudder lifted his breast. Then he 
was immobile again. 

Pat crept away until she reached the refuge of the 
lower floor. She ran into the garden, kept on running to 
the far extent of the grounds, flung herself down and so 
lay. She did not collapse; she did not cry. But pres¬ 
ently—unpoetic and anti-climactic though it be to record 
plain facts—the stress of sudden emotion on top of a 
hearty luncheon had its logical effect. Pat was violently 
sick. 

As soon as she recovered breath and poise, she returned 
to the house with a plan in mind, stamped noisily upstairs 
and entered the sick room. 

“Hello, Jimmie-jams!” 

“Hello, Pat.” His face lighted up a little; she was 
miserably conscious that he had always welcomed her 
with a smile. 


FLAMING YOUTH 


297 


“How are you feeling?” 

“All right.” This was his invariable formula. 

“Don’t lie to me!” She closed the door, lowered the 
window, and turned upon him. “Jimmie!” 

“Well?” 

“Swear!” 

“All right. I swear. What’s the secret?” 

“Not that kind of swear. Cuss. Rip it out. Blast the 
ceiling off the roof. Let yourself go.” 

He peered into her face. It was solemn, intent. “I 

don’t know what-” he began. Then he broke off and 

let himself go. Such virulent, vitriolic, blazing, throbbing 
profanity Pat had never dreamt of. It comprehended the 
known universe and covered the history of the cosmos, 
past, present, and future. When he had finished and lay 
back exhausted, she enquired: 

“Feel better, don’t you?” 

“Yes. How did you know?” 

“I saw you a few minutes ago when your eyes were 

holding in. But you couldn’t help—there was-” She 

touched her own eyelids. 

“You’re a - liar, Pat!” exploded the correct and 

punctilious T. Jameson James. 

“That’s right. Go to it if you haven’t got it all out,” 
approved Pat. 

“No; I’m through. Lord, that did me good!” 

“Cussing to yourself is no good. You’ve got to have 
somebody to listen. Ever let anyone hear you really 
loosen up before?” 

“No. I’ve always been too—too”—he grinned—“hell¬ 
ish dignified.” 

“Well, you send for me when you need an audience.” 

From that time a bond of special sympathy and fellow¬ 
ship was established between the life so disastrously 





298 


FLAMING YOUTH 


wrecked and the life so triumphantly burgeoning. Every 
morning after breakfast Fat called him on the phone and 
every noon she came over for an hour’s chat, until Dee, 
grateful beyond her self-contained power to express, 
threatened to sue her sister for alienation of her hus¬ 
band’s affections. 

Nothing, of however much appeal to Pat, was permit 
ted to interfere with this regimen. Through this it was 
that she had her quarrel with Monty Standish. 

After three years of hard-working athletic obscurity, 
Standish had suddenly blossomed out into flaming foot¬ 
ball prominence. His picture appeared in the sporting 
pages of the metropolitan dailies; his condition was the 
subject of commentary in the papers, as serious as that 
accorded to an ailing king. He was of a gallant and 
alluring type, a bonny lad, handsome, spirited, good- 
humoured, well-mannered, sluggish of mind as he was 
alert of body, but with a magnetism almost as imperative 
as Pat’s own. He had quite withheld his homage from 
her, ostentatiously refusing to compete in the circle of 
her adorers, so she was the more surprised and gratified 
when he asked her to join his sister’s party for the big 
game. It cost her a real pang to decline, but when he 
hotly resented her refusal and demanded an explanation— 
he was rather spoiled by all the local adulation and news¬ 
paper notoriety which were the guerdon of his prowess— 
Pat declined to be catechised. There was a scene, angry 
on his part, scornful on hers, and he departed, darkly 
indicating that if Princeton lost the game on his side of 
the line the true responsibility for the catastrophe would 
rest upon her contemptuous shoulders. 

How T. Jameson James got wind of the controversy she 
never knew, but on the day of the game he called her to 
account. 


FLAMING YOUTH 


299 


<c Why didn’t you go down to Princeton?” 

“Didn’t want to,” she said airily. 

“Monty Standish asked you, didn’t he?” 

“He said something about it.” 

“They say he’s the greatest end we’ve had for ten 
years.” James was a Princeton alumnus. “He’s a good- 
looking youngster, Pat.” 

The girl flushed and her eyes shone. “He’s a winner 
to look at,” she agreed. 

“They tell me you’ve added him to your collection.” 

“That’s all guff,” replied the inelegant Pat. 

“Is it? The point is that you wouldn’t go because you 
felt you had to come here. Isn’t that so?” 

“I didn’t want to go, anyway,” lied Pat gallantly. 
“I’ m worn with football twice a week.” 

“Well, you’ve got to stop spoiling me by coming here 
every day. It’s bad for me; the doctor says so. I won’t 
have it.” 

“Are you going to close the house to me?” retorted Pat 
saucily. “You’ll have to hire a guard. Go on, swear, 
Jimmie.” 

“Oh, you go to the devil!” said the invalid, laughing. 
“If Princeton loses to-day-” 

But Princeton won and Pat was saved from the undy¬ 
ing remorse which should (but probably would not) have 
consumed her spirit had Standish “fallen down” and 
involved his team in defeat. 

He came back the following week-end, a hero of the 
first calibre, and undertook to ignore Pat at the Saturday 
dance at which he was unofficial guest of honour. It would 
have been a more successful attempt if his eyes had not 
constantly strayed from whatever partner he was with, 
to follow Pat’s pliant and swaying form in the arms of 
some happier man. On the morrow his stern resolution, 



300 


FLAMING YOUTH 


already weakened, was totally melted by a talk which he 
had with T. Jameson James, who had sent for him osten¬ 
sibly to ask about the game. 

For a front-page newspaper hero he was amazingly 
humble when he called up Pat to ask if he might come and 
see her. Pat, her heart swelling with pride and not with¬ 
out a flutter of other emotions, said that he might if he 
would apologise properly. Mr. Standish did apologise 
properly and handsomely, and, by the time the apology 
was concluded, Pat was mildly astonished at finding her¬ 
self in his arms being fervently kissed and returning the 
kisses with no less fervour. She was further surprised to 
find, when he bade her good-night, that she was engaged 
to him. 

But the really astounding feature of the whole matter 
came when she awoke the next morning to a sense of the 
prevailing luminosity of the world and the conviction that 
she was thrillingly in love. She had thought that she was 
through with all that. For a long time, anyway. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


They had been engaged for four months. On the 
whole Pat found the status highly satisfactory. Every¬ 
one heartily approved the match. Because of Monty’s 
college duties, which pressed sorely upon him as he was 
having constant difficulty in keeping up, they saw little 
of each other, a fortunate circumstance, as the glamour 
of her lover’s physical beauty and personal charm per¬ 
sisted in her mind when they were separated, creating a 
romantic figure, to which no special mental attributes 
were essential. Had they been thrown more constantly 
together she might have been disillusioned by the torpid 
and unimaginative quality of his mind. But in their 
brief association over week-ends they were surrounded 
by others, and when they were alone his ardent love-making 
eked out the scantness of his conversational resources. 
If, sometimes, Cary Scott’s words, “companionship, the 
rarest thing in life or love,” recurred to her, arousing 
unwelcome questions, she put them away. Scott’s image 
had dimmed again, in the hot radiance of this new attrac¬ 
tion; she determinedly kept it far in the background. 
But there was one unrelenting memory which refused 
to be permanently immured in the past. 

When the time for the wedding was set, mid-June 
immediately after Monty’s graduation (if he succeeded 
in graduating), she realised that she must face that 
memory and dispose of it, for her own peace of mind. Her 
uneasy thoughts turned to Dr. Bobs. Perhaps he could 
lay the ghost. 


301 


302 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Bobs, what do you really think of Monty?” She Had 
gone to his office, nerved up to the interview. 

Osterhout considered. “He means well,” was his judi¬ 
cial pronunciamento. 

“What a rotten thing to say about a girl’s best young 
man! What’s the matter with him?” 

“Stupid.” 

“Then you didn’t really mean your congratulations.” 

“Certainly. It’s an excellent engagement.” 

“Am I stupid, Bobs?” she pouted. 

“No. But I think you’ll be perfectly satisfied with a 
stupid husband.” 

“I don’t know what makes you so revolting to-day!” 
complained Pat. “I’d be bored to death with a boob 
around the house, and you know it. He’s not stupid.” 

“If you’re satisfied, I am,” said the amiable Bobs. “I 
don’t have to live with him. He’s a prize beauty all right. 
And rich!” 

“There you go again. I don’t care. (Defiantly) I love 
Monty, and that’s enough. Anyway I didn’t come here 
to talk about him exactly. It’s something else. Bobs, 
do many girls confess to their doctors?” 

Osterhout looked up sharply and frowned. Almost 
word for word Mona had put that same query to him 
years before. But Pat’s face was more child-like, graver, 
than that of the lovely, laughing, reckless Mona had been. 

“Probably more than to their priests,” he made reply. 
“That’s what a doctor is for.” 

“Yes!” she cried eagerly. “Please be just the Fentriss 
family physician for a few minutes. Make it easy for 
me, Bobs dear.” 

Indefinably his manner changed with his next words, 
became quietly attentive, soothing, almost impersonal as 


FLAMING YOUTH 


303 


he said: “Take your time, Pat. And when you’re ready, 
tell me as much or as little as you wish.” 

“It isn’t too easy—even to you. Can’t you guess?” 

“Ah,” said he, after a pause of scrutiny. “So 
that’s it.” 

“Don’t look at me.” She put her hands up as if to 
shield her face from flame. “Just tell me what to do.” 

“Are you in trouble?” 

“Of course,” said she impatiently. “Do you think I’d 

come bothering you- Oh, no! Not that way. Though 

it might have happened. Now you do know.” 

“Go on, Pat.” 

“Aren’t you shocked?” Pier eyes darted up at him, 
at once supplicating and defiant, from out the tangle of 
her vagrant hair. 

“Not a bit. We doctors don’t judge. We help.” 

“Oh, Bobs! You are divine. I want to know—it’s 
awfully hard to put it—to know whether—if he'll know 
—when we’re married.” 

“He?” Osterhout groped in a murk of bewilderment. 
“Who?” 

“Monty, of course. Don’t be dumb," 

“Monty? Isn’t Monty the man?” 

“Oh, no!” 

For the moment Osterhout was startled clean out of 
his professional attitude. “Who is?” he said sternly. 

Instantly Pat was mutinous. “I won’t tell you.” 

“I’m sorry I asked it. It’s none of your doctor’s affair 
who he is. You want me to tell you whether your hus¬ 
band, when you marry, will know that you have had 
experience before.” 

“Yes,” answered Pat under her breath. 

“I’ll answer you as I always answer that question.” 

“Always! Have you had it asked you before?” 




304 


FLAMING YOUTH 


A slight, melancholy, tolerant smile lifted the corners 
of the strong mouth. “My dear, every doctor who has 
had among his patients specimens of the modern, high- 
strung girl has had that problem put up to him. The 
answer is simple; no, he won’t know—unless you tell him.” 

She drew a soft breath of relief, but almost at once her 
face darkened, as the import of his last words made its 
way to her quick sensitiveness. “Do you want me to 
tell him?” 

“That is not a question for a physician to answer.” 

Pat stamped her foot. “Stop being one, then. Be 
Bobs again. Shall I tell him, Bobs?” 

“Has he ever told you any tiling of that nature?” 

“No. Perhaps there isn’t anything to tell. Though 
I don’t suppose he’s exactly one of them dam’ virgins. 
What do you know about him?” 

Osterhout gave himself full time to debate the answer 
within himself before responding. “There was a raid 
last year on a notorious roadhouse near here. Several 
of our best youth—if you reckon them by family—were 
caught. Montgomery Standish was one of them.” 

“Ugh!” shuddered Pat. “A vile joint like that! Why 
didn’t you tell me before, Bobs?” 

He shrugged his shoulders. “You’d have to go pretty 
wide of your own set to find a boy with a clean record. 
Monty is no worse than the rest.” 

“What beasts men are!” 

“He might say, if he knew anything: ‘What crooks 
girls are!’ ” 

“You don’t mean that it’s the same thing,” said Pat 
beneath her breath. “He goes to a rotten place, probably 
drunk-” 

“U ndoubtedly.” 

“And—and- Oh, it makes me sick to think of it! It 




FLAMING YOUTH 


305 


isn’t the same. I may have been a silly little fool, but 
—oh, Bobs ! Can’t you understand?” 

“Who was the man, Bambina?” 

At the old term of affection her face softened. “Can’t 
you guess, Bobs, dear?” she whispered. 

A blinding, burning illumination lighted up his memory 
of a hundred small, vitally significant facts, against which 
the sudden certainty stood forth, black and stark. 

“Cary Scott, by God!” 

Pat’s face was set. Her eyes, sombre but fearless, 
answered him. 

“The damned scoundrel!” 

“He isn’t” 

“Isn’t? A man of his age to come into a house as a 
friend and seduce an innocent child!” 

“He didn’t seduce me any more than I seduced him.” 

“Don’t talk infernal nonsense.” 

“It’s true; it’s true , and you’ve got to believe it. It 
was as much my fault as his.” 

“Was it your fault that he left you, like a coward?” 

“He didn’t. I sent him away. He wanted to get free 
and marry me, and he would have done it if I’d let him. 
He was terribly in love with me, Bobs. Monty doesn’t 
love me that way. Nobody ever will again.” 

“Well, why wouldn’t you marry him?” queried the 
amazed physician. 

“Oh, I don’t know.” She gave her shoulders the child¬ 
ish petulant wriggle of old, again the ‘petite gamine of 
Scott’s patient love. “He’s so old.” 

“Then why in the name-” 

“You’re full of whys, Bobs. It happened; that’s all. 
Nobody ever knows why nor how in these things, do they? 
I—x j us t lost my footing and drew him with me, if you 
want the truth of it.” 



306 FLAMING YOUTH 

“I’m beginning to believe you. But I still think 
he’s-” 

She flattened a hand gently across his lips. “No, you 
don’t. He’s the best man I’ve ever known. Except, per¬ 
haps, you, Bobs. If you were in Monty’s place and I 
came to you and told the whole thing you’d marry me 
anyway, wouldn’t you?” 

“Yes, of course.” 

“But you don’t think Monty would?” 

“I didn’t say so. He’s very young and—and un¬ 
formed.” 

Pat fell into a reverie. “It was really my mind that 
Cary seduced. He drew my mind*into his and—and sort 
of absorbed it, so that I couldn’t get any satisfaction out 
of other associations. You wouldn’t call him a damned 
scoundrel for that-” 

“I’m not so sure I wouldn’t.” 

“—but it’s the thing he’s most to blame for. It’s worse 
than the other. It goes deeper.” 

“You’re getting profound, Pat, as well as clever.” 
In spite of his perturbation, the doctor smiled. “Though 
you’re talking casuistry.” 

“I don’t know what that is. I’m talking sense. I’ve 
almost forgotten that Cary and I were lovers. But there’s 
something way down deep in my mind that he’ll never 
lose his hold on.” 

“You’re in love with him yet, then!” 

“I’m not!” she denied vehemently. “I’m in love with 
Monty. Violently.” 

“I wish he were ten years older. Or a thousand or so 
wiser. Then I’d say, ‘Tell him the whole thing.’ As it 
is, no. He’s marrying your future, not your past. If 
you’re going to play straight with him-” 





FLAMING YOUTH 307 

“Absolutely!” she averred. “I won’t look at another 
man after we’re married.” 

“What about that restlessness of the mind, though?” 

“All done with. What’s the good? You have more fun 
if you’re stupid. ... You were always wanting me to 
marry somebody old enough to be my grandfather, Bpbs, 
but-” 

“Ah, yes,” he cut*in grimly. “Now you’re going to 
answer me some questions. How came you to know that, 
about my wanting you to marry a man over thirty?” 

“If I tell you, you’ll *be paralysed.” 

“Go ahead. Paralyse me.” 

“I read it in your letters.” 

“What letters?” he asked, stupefied. 

“The ones to Mother. Oh, Bobs, I think they were 
too flawless. No one but a darling like you could have 
written them.” 

“Wait a moment.” He put his hand to his head. His 
science-circumscribed world of materialism was toppling 
about him. “How did you know about them? That I 
was writing them? Where to find them?” 

“Mother told me.” 

“Mona? Pat, I want the truth.” 

“I’m giving it to you. Before she died, when I saw her 
there in New York, she told me how she had made you 
promise to write and put the letters in the safe; and the 
real reason was, not that she thought she would ever 
come back to read them, but she thought you were the 
wisest and best man in the world, and she knew how fond 
you were of all of us, and she wanted me to know what 
you thought and be guided by what you said. I suppose 
she figured that you’d say more about me that way than 
you ever would to me. So you did.” 



308 


FLAMING YOUTH 


Osterhout gave a great laugh, partly of relief, partly 
of tenderness. “That’s so like Mona! Her passion for 
intrigue, just for the sake of the game itself; her eternal 
loving cleverness. There are mighty few people, Pat, in 
whom affection is a thing of the mind as well as the heart. 
Your mother was one of them.” 

“So’m I,” asserted Pat promptly. “What’s the matter 
now, Bobs?” For his face had altered again, his brow 
drawing heavily down, his eyes become still and brooding. 

“It won’t do, Pat. You’re not telling me the truth. 
Not the whole truth. After your mother died, I changed 
the combination of the safe.” 

The girl’s laugh had a queer, strained quality. “I know 
you did. What of it?” 

“How could you get the letters to read?” 

“I couldn’t, at first.” 

“But you claim that you did. How?” 

“Well—it was a dream. At least, it must have been a 
dream. Or else—I don’t know. Mother came back one 
night and took me by the hand and led me into her room 
to the safe, and when I woke up the door was open and 
the numbers of the combination were in my brain as clearly 
as if someone had just spoken them in my ear.” 

“Were you frightened, Pat?” 

“Not a bit. Isn’t it strange? After that I could open 
it myself, any time.” 

“Pat, do you really think,” he began hoarsely, and 
stopped. 

“Do I think it was her spirit? I don’t know. It was 
something .” 

“It was something,” he repeated. “Something from the 
other side. A lifting of the curtain. For you; not for, 
me. Well,” he sighed, “no more letters.” 

“Why not?” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


309 


“Why should there be? Whatever I’ve got to say to 
you I can say direct, now that the secret is out. It was 
really to you that I was writing all the time, so it 
appears.” 

“It wasn’t. It was to her. How do you know she 
doesn’t know; doesn’t read them—and love them? You 
must keep them up, Bobs.” 

He shook his head. But his veiled glance roved to the 
mahogany desk in the corner. Instantly Pat inter¬ 
preted it: 

“There’s one there. An unfinished one. Let me 
read it.” 

“As you like. It’s only just begun. About your engage¬ 
ment. It doesn’t matter anyway now. A lost illusion.” 

From a locked secret drawer he took the letter, only 
a single sheet. An inspiration came to Pat. “Fm going 
to add a P. S. May I?” 

“Yes.” 

Seating herself she ran through the few brief words, 
then wrote busily. Having finished she leaned back in 
her chair to consider her companion. 

“Bobs,” she announced with deliberation: “I think I’ll 
let you read what I’ve written. Shall I?” 

He held out his hand. She put the missive into it. He 
read: 

“Dearest: Bobs thinks he is still in love with you. He 
means to be faithful, poor old boy. But he really loves 
Dee. She knows it, way inside her; the way women know. 
And she is coming to care for him, too. That is why she 
is so shy and stand-offish with him; not a bit like Con 
and me. But he hasn’t the sense to see it. It’s time he 
knew it; that both of them knew it. Poor, brave old 
Jimmie-jams is going to pass out one of these days, and 


FLAMING YOUTH 


31Q 

be rid of all his pains. He knows it; he told me last week 
—we’re the greatest pals ever—that he wouldn’t last a 
year. There was someone else that Dee was crazy about; 
but she’s given that up. It’s over. So when Jimmie-jams 
passes along it’s up to Bobs, if he’s a man and not an old 
fossil, to step forward. Dee’s been a widow long enough. 
That is what you would want for them both, isn’t it, dear? 
I know it is.” 

Osterhout walked over to the window. His face was 
white, his bulky frame trembling. The betraying sheet 
of paper fluttered away from his fingers. Suddenly warm 
arms were about his neck; soft lips were pressed to his 
cheek; a breath that wavered against his ear like a fra¬ 
grant breeze of spring formed the words, gaily spoken: 

“Oh, Bobs! Who cares a darn for a lost illusion whe$ 
the reality is so much sweeterj” 



CHAPTER XXXIII 


From th£ time when Dr. Osterhout assured Her of her 
secret’s safety, Pat knew that she must tell her fiance, 
before the wedding. Some quirk of feminine psychology 
would have justified her in concealment, so long as there 
was risk. The chances of the game! But to go forward 
upon the path of marriage in perfect safety and with an 
unsuspecting mate—that was, in her mind, mean . Curi¬ 
osity, too, that restless, morbid craving to know what 
exciting thing would result, pressed her. The daring 
experimentalist was rampant within her. How would 
Monty take it? What would he do? 

. . . How should she tell him? . . . 

Opportunity paved the way. A group of her set were 
at Holiday Knoll on a Saturday evening, discussing the 
local sensation of the day. Generously measured highballs 
had been distributed, and in the dim conservatory, lighted 
only by the glow of cigarettes, they discussed the event. 
A betrothed girl of another suburb had committed suicide 
after the breaking of her engagement and gossip ascribed 
the tragedy to the inopportune discovery of an old love 
affair. With the freedom of the modern flapper, Mar¬ 
garet Thorne, half lying in the arms of Nick Torrance 
on the settee, declared the position: 

“It was the Teddy Barnaby business. Two years ago 
we all thought they were engaged.” 

“Weren’t they?” asked someone. 

“More or less,” asseverated the sprightly Miss Thorne. 
“Chiefly more, from all accounts. Then Johnny Dupuy 
came here to live, and she shifted her young affections to 
him and caught him.” 


311 



312 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Do you think he found out about Teddy ?•” 

“Sure—like—a—Bible.” 

“How?” •> 

“Why pick on me for a hard one like that?” 

“Perhaps she told him,” suggested one of the other 
girls. 

“She wouldn’t be such a boob; no girl would,” offered a 
languid girlish voice. 

“It’d be the square thing to do.” This was a masculine 
opinion, and jejune, even for that crowd. 

“Don’t know—yah!” declared Miss Thorne, meaning 
to express her contempt for this view. “It was up to 
Dupuy to look in the mare’s mouth before he bought.” 

The discussion played about the subject with daring 
sallies and prurient relish, the final conclusion of the 
majority being that the fiance had “got wise” and the girl 
had killed herself because he broke the engagement, “as 
any fellow would” (Monty Standish’s contribution, this 
last). 

“What if she did go to him and own up?” suggested 
Selden Thorpe. 

“It’d be just the same,” opined Standish. “He’d have 
to quit.” 

“Oh, I don’t know. It doesn’t follow.” 

“Wouldn’t you?” 

“I don’t know that I would. It depends.” 

“You’d be a pretty poor sort of fish if you wouldn’t.” 

“Maybe, if I thought as you do. But we don’t all 
think the same.” 

“Some of us don’t think at all,” put in Pat acidly, 
“We just talk.” 

“Meaning which, Treechy ?” inquired Torrance. 

“Oh, nothing!” 



FLAMING YOUTH 313 

“I know John Dupuy,” proceeded Thorpe. “He isn’t 
just exactly the one to draw lines too strictly.” 

“I grant you that Johnnie would never win the diamond- 
set chastity belt of the world’s championship,” said the 
daring Miss Thorne, and elicited a chorus of apprecia¬ 
tive mirth. 

Pat did not join in it. She was thinking fast and hard. 

After the rest had gone Monty stayed on, as of right. 
Something in Pat’s expression struck even his torpid per¬ 
ceptions, as he put his arm around her and drew her to 
him for the customary “petting party.” 

“What’s all the gloom about, sweetie?” 

She released herself not over-gently. “Monty, would 
you have done what Dupuy did?” 

“How do you mean?” 

“Broken off your engagement—on that account?” 

“Why, yes. Any fellow would.” A convincing reason, 
for him. 

“Selden Thorpe wouldn’t.” 

“I’ll bet he would. He’s a bluff. He makes me sick.” 

“Well—then—you’d better break ours.” 

“I don’t get you, Pat.” 

“It’s been the same with me as with Elsie Dowden. 
I’ve been meaning to tell you.” 

“I don’t believe it,” he said violently. “It’s a try-on. 
A trick.” 

“It’s true. You’ve got to believe it.” 

“Who’s the man?” bayed Monty like a huge dog. 

“I’ll never tell you.” 

He gathered his powerful frame together as if to spring 
upon her. If he did, if he beat her to the ground, choked 
her into helplessness, Pat thought, she would hate hin 
and love him for it. But his rage ebbed, impotent of it» 
culmination, a little pitiful, a little ridiculous. 


314 FLAIMING YOUTH 

“Wh-wh-what did you do it for?” It was almost a 
whimper. 

“X don’t know. I didn’t mean to—at the beginning.” 

“Did you love him?” 

“Yes. I thought I did.” 

“You love him now,” he charged, his fury mounting 
again. 

“I don’t! I love you.” 

“This is a hell of a thing to tell a man you say you 
love,” he faltered plaintively. 

“You’d rather I hadn’t told you. I’m not built that 
way! I had to tell.” 

Instantly he was suspicious. “Had to? Why did you 
have to?” 

“Not for any reason that you’d understand.” The 
slight emphasis on the “you” was the first touch of bitter¬ 
ness she had allowed herself. 

“Wouldn’t he marry you?” 

“X wouldn’t marry him.” 

Monty perceptibly brightened. Pat’s womanly intui¬ 
tions, supersensitised by the strain of the contest, told 
her why. If, to his male standards, she was a maiden 
despoiled, she was at least not a woman scorned; her 
rating had gone up sensibly. 

“Where is he now?” 

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him for a long time. 
I’ll never see him again.” 

“Pat,” with an air of resolute magnanimity—“if you’ll 
tell me who it was I’ll marry you anyway.” 

At that her pale cheeks flamed. “I’m not begging you 
to marry me, Monty. I’m not that cheap in the market.” 

“You want our engagement broken?” 

“That’s up to you. Absolutely. If you think, now 


FLAMING YOUTH 31$ 

I've told you, that you’re so much better and purer than 
I am because I’ve done what I did-” 

“What d’you mean, better and purer?” 

“I suppose you’ve never had any affair with any 
girl-” 

“Are you trying to pretend to believe that’s the same 
thing?” His voice was incredulous, contemptuous. 

“Why isn’t it the same thing?” 

Young Mr. Standish suffered a paralysis of scandalised 
amazement. “Because it isn’t! For God’s sake! You 
talk like one of those radical freaks that spout on soap¬ 
boxes.” 

“I’m not so sure they aren’t right about this man-and- 
woman thing,” declared Pat recklessly. In so speaking 
she felt that she had broken with conventionalities far 
more than in anything, however bold, previously enun¬ 
ciated in their talk. 

Monty’s square jaw became ugly. “I’m giving you youi; 
chance. You won’t tell me the man’s name?” 

Pat preserved the silence of obstinacy. It was more 
convincing than any negative. Also more exasperating. 

“Good-night!” bellowed her lover, and strode from the 
room. 

Almost immediately he was back, endued with a sad and 
noble expression. “Nobody shall ever know about this 
from me, Pat. You’re safe.” 

For three nights Pat washed her troubled soul with 
tears. Her family knew that there had been a lovers’ 
quarrel; that was all. Pat waited for Monty to break the 
engagement formally or send her word that he wished her 
to break it. Through all her grief of bereavement which, 
she repeatedly told herself, was the most sorrowful depth 
that her life had yet touched, that any life could touch, 




316 


FLAMING YOUTH 


fshe impatiently awaited the definite solution. Relief from 
the strain of uncertainty; that was what she craved. 

On the fourth evening Monty reappeared. All his 
nobleness was gone. He was haggard, nerve-racked, 
forlorn. He threw himself upon her compassion. He 
implored her. He would forgive everything; he would 
forget everything; he would make no conditions, if only 
she would take him back. Life without her- 

f< All right, Monty-boy,” said Pat, really affected by 
his suffering. haven’t changed. I love you, Monty. 
But if ever you let what I’ve told you make any differ¬ 
ence, if ever you speak of it or let me know that you even 
think of it, I’m through . That minute and forever.” 

Humbly, abjectly, the upholder of man’s superior 
privilege accepted the absurd condition. The stronger* 
nature had completely dominated the weaker. 

Back in his arms again, Pat savoured the delicious 
warmth of a passion the more ardent for the threat of 
frustration; the triumph of a crisis valorously met and 
successfully passed. But an encroaching thought tainted 
the rapture of the moment. What was it that he himself 
had so confidently said to Selden Thorpe? Was her 
splendid and beautiful young lover, holding the views which 
he had proclaimed and surrendering them so readily, 
indeed “a poor sort of fish”? 



CHAPTER XXXIV 


Again Pat Was happy in her engagement. She fre¬ 
quently and insistently assured herself that she was. Cer¬ 
tainly she had no just complaint of Monty. He was all 
that a lover should be when they were together; he kept 
to his pact and never in any manner referred to Pat’s 
confession. But when he was away she sometimes wished 
that he wouldn’t write so often, or, at least, expect her 
to answer so regularly. His letters added nothing to his 
charm. They innocently bristled with I’s; but it was the 
monotony rather than the egotism of his style that an¬ 
noyed her. Her answers, at first ardent, vivid and flash¬ 
ing like herself, soon became mere chronicles of petty 
events, interspersed with protestations of love. They 
were temporarily genuine enough, these latter, since each 
time he was with her she was re-warmed in the glow of 
their mutual passion. 

But she could not stifle all misgivings. Incompetent 
though she was to analyse comprehensively her changeful 
emotions, she nevertheless had disturbing gleams of self- 
knowledge which added nothing to her confidence in a 
future whereof Monty Standish was to be a large part. 
Pat dimly recognised herself for that difficult and com¬ 
posite type of girlhood which, though imperatively sexed, 
will never fulfill itself through physical attraction and 
physical satisfactions alone. For such as she there must 
be the double response; if the mating be not both mentally 
and physically sufficient, ultimate disaster is inevitable. 

Brooding upon these self-suspicions she would fall into 
moods of silence and withdrawal puzzling to the matter- 

317 


318 FLAMING YOUTH 

6f-fact lover who would sometimes grow quite petulant 
over her perfunctory responses to his good-humoured 
ineffectualities of companionship. Once when he rallied 
her upon this she burst into angry tears and snapped out: 
“I’m so dam’ worn with piffle and prattle,” and darted 
upstairs. 

But at their next meeting she was so prettily contrite 
and yielding that his vanity was quite soothed. 

As the wedding day drew near, Pat dismissed whatever 
doubts she may have had, in the excitement of fitting-out. 
It was on one of these shopping expeditions, when she had 
gone into town by train, her runabout having suffered an 
attack of nervous breakdown, that, crossing the station 
plaza she came face to face with an old but unforgotten 
acquaintance. She saw his keen pleasant face light up, 
could read in his half-dismayed expression the struggle 
to remember exactly who she was, and went to him, hold¬ 
ing out her hand: 

“You’ve forgotten me, Mr. Warren Graves.” 

He took the hand. “Indeed, I haven’t! It’s Pat. 
Little Pat.” 

She nodded. “Better than I gave you credit for.” 

“I’m awfully sorry, but I have forgotten the rest 
of it.” 

“Pat’ll do,” she laughed. 

“No; but let me think back.” 

“Want any help?” 

“It was a party, somewhere about here. A corking 
party. I’d had one drink that I remember and some more 
that I don’t. A funny, delightful kiddie was floating 
around outside like Cinderella. She wouldn’t go in and 
dance with me, but—let me think-” 

“I wouldn’t think too far,” urged Pat, her face tinged 
with pink. 



FLAMING YOUTH 


319 


“AH, but I’ve got the name now!” he cried, triumphant 
and tactful at once. “Fentriss. Miss Patricia Fentriss, 
alias Pat, alias the Infant, alias the Demon- 

“What a relieving memory you’ve got!” 

“—who stood at the bend of the stairs and said good¬ 
night so sweetly that I never quite got over it. But, I 
say; you have grown up.” 

He looked at her piquant, provocative, welcoming face 
and continued, with a gleam of mischief in his eyes: 

“Now that I’m recovering from the shock I seem to 
recall an older sister protruding from a door most inop¬ 
portunely.” 

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll miss your train, Mr. Graves?” 

“I’m not going to the train.” 

“You’re carrying that satchel for exercise?” 

“I’m wishing it onto the parcels stand while I take a 
delightful young lady to luncheon.” 

“Surely you must be keeping her waiting.” 

“I’m daring to hope she’ll come with me while I pry 
myself from this baggage. Will you, Pat?” 

“Oh; you’re asking me to lunch with you?” 

“Such is my dark and deadly purpose.” 

“I ought not to. But I want to.” 

He laughed delightedly. “You haven’t changed a bit 
inside and most marvellously outside. Then you’ll come?” 

“You’d make a fortune as a mind-reader. There’s a 
condition though.” 

“Name it; it’s agreed to.” 

“That you’ll forget all about that foolishness of ours 
at the party. I was only fourteen.” 

It was his turn to flush. “You make me ashamed of 
myself,” he said with such charming sincerity that Pat 
let fall a friendly and forgiving hand upon his arm for 
a second. “But let me tell you this. When I left your 



320 


FLAMING YOUTH 


house that night I was more than a little in love with 
you. Oh, calf-love, doubtless. But—it makes it a little 
better, doesn’t it?” 

“Yes,” answered Pat gravely. “It makes it a lot better 
—for both of us.” 

“Then we’ll forget all of it that you’d wish forgotten,” 
said he. 

In her italicised moments Pat would have described the 
luncheon that followed as “too enticing.” But Pat did 
not feel stressful in the company of Warren Graves; she 
felt quiet and attentive, and wonderfully receptive to the 
breath of the greater world which he brought to her. He 
had been in the diplomatic service since the war, in several 
European capitals, had read and thought and mingled 
with men who were making or marring not the politics 
alone, but the very geography of the malleable earth. 
After a little light talk, in which Pat was conscious that 
he was trying her out, the rapprochement of their minds 
was established and he settled down to talk with her as 
if she had been a woman of the international world in 
which he moved. Her swift, apprehensive intelligence 
kept him up to his best form. As the coffee was finished 
he said reproachfully: 

“You’ve made me chatter my head off. And I’m sup- 
posed to have rather a gift for silence. How do you work 
your spells?” 

“By being sunk in admiring interest,” she answered, 
smiling up at him as she put on her gloves. “You’ve 
given me the most delightful hour I’ve had for years.” 

“But it needn’t end here, need it?” he protested anx¬ 
iously. “Don’t you want to go to a matinee, or some¬ 
thing?” 

“There aren’t any. It’s Friday.” 

“So it is. But there are always the movies.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


321 


Pat knew that she ought not to go; there were a dozen 
important errands to be done. But: “Oh, very well,” 
she said. Duties could wait. Pleasure was something 
you had to grab before it got away from you. The philos¬ 
ophy of the flapper. 

At the “motion picture palace” they got box seats, 
the chairs suggestively close together. She wondered 
whether he would try to hold her hand; also whether she 
would let him if he did. Probably she would; there was 
no harm in that, and it gave a pleasant sense of compan¬ 
ionship. Most of the boys with whom she went to the 
theatre or movies expected it. Apparently Warren 
Graves didn’t. He made no move in that direction. 
Piqued a little, nevertheless Pat liked him the better for 
it. Monty might perhaps have objected if he knew. And, 
with a start, she discovered that only just then had she 
thought of Monty Standish. He had been, for the time, 
quite forgotten in the interest of a more enlivening and 
demanding association. 

What the “serial” of the play was, Pat could hardly 
have told; “some hurrah about the West,” she informed 
T. Jameson James afterward. At the conclusion of it 
there came a “news feature,” showing scenes about the 
building where the League of Nations session was being 
held. Various noted personages appeared, walked with 
the knee-slung, unnatural stalk of the screen across the 
space, and vanished. Then it was as if a blinding flash 
had been projected from the square. An unforgettable 
figure stood out amidst the crowd, the face turned toward 
her, the eyes, with the faint ironic lift of the brows, look¬ 
ing down into her soul, arousing a tumult and a throb¬ 
bing which left her hardly breath enough to gasp out: 

“Cary Scott!” 

“Do you know Scott?” asked her escort interestedly. 


322 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Yes. He used to visit in Dorrisdale. Do you?” 

“Quite well. Everyone on the inside in Europe knows 
him; he’s one of the men who are doing big things under 
the surface at the conference.” 

“Tell me,” urged Pat as they left the place. 

He sketched Scott’s career as confidential adviser to 
several of the most important of the protagonists in that 
Titans’ struggle. “He’s a sort of liaison officer, knowing 
France and this country as he does. He’s had a rather 
rough time of it, lately, poor chap.” 

“Is he ill?” Pat had a struggle to control her voice. 

“No. A domestic smash. His wife—that was—is a 
demonish sort of female. However, he’s got well rid of 
her now. To be accurate, he let her get rid of him. 
Over-decent of him, all things considered.” 

“Perhaps she had cause, too.” Pat hated herself as 
she said it. But she craved to know. 

“Nothing of that kind,” was the positive reply. “Scott 
has been living like an anchorite. They say he was hard 
hit here in America. As to that, I don’t know. Certainly 
he has been devoting himself to his work with no room 
for any other devotion. Which is more than can be said 
of his ex-wife.” 

“I never met her,” Pat heard her voice saying, and 
quite admired it for its tone of casual interest. “She 
didn’t come to Dorrisdale.” 

“Speaking of Dorrisdale, I’m at Washington for a 
while. Mayn’t I run up to see you?” 

“No. I’m afraid not.” 

“That’s a little—disappointing.” 

“You see, I’m going to be terribly busy until my wed¬ 
ding.” 

“Wedding? Oh! All my felicitations. I didn’t know.” 



FLAMING YOUTH 323 

“Yes. I’m to be married to Monty Standish next 
month.” 

Even as her lips spoke the words her soul denied them. 
In the dominant depths of her, she knew that she could 
never marry Monty Standish now. Her thoughts, so 
lightly detached from her fiance by the easy charm of 
Warren Graves, had been claimed, coerced, irrevocably 
absorbed by the swift-passing phantom presentment of 
her former lover. The bond created when she had given 
herself to him was as nothing compared to this imperative 
summons across the spaces. 

After a night of passionate struggle, succeeded by reso¬ 
lute thinking, she wired Monty to come on. When he 
came, she broke the engagement. It was ruthless, cruel, 
unfair. Pat had no excuses, no extenuations to offer. 
She simply stood firm. Monty returned to college, failed 
of his graduation, and let it be known among his indig¬ 
nant friends and relatives that Pat had ruined his career. 
Hot and righteous though his wrath was, he never so 
much as hinted at Pat’s secret. Stupid, unstable, self- 
satisfied, spoiled; the plaster idol of an athlete-worship¬ 
ping age; but nevertheless a gentleman within whom one 
flame of honour burned clear and constant behind its dull 
encasement. 

Pat’s family variously raged, begged, and protested. 
Pat let them. They prophesied social ostracism for her. 
She shrugged away the suggestion as improbable in the 
first place and not worth worrying about anyway. But 
she would have gone away had it not been for her self- 
assumed responsibility to her broken brother-in-law. And 
it was from him that her main support came. From the 
first he stood by her unquestioning. 

“You’re awfully good to me, Jimmie-jams,” she said 
one day as she was wheeling him in the garden, having dis- 


324 


FLAMING YOUTH 


missed the attendant. “What did you really think when 
I told you I wasn’t going to marry Monty?” 

A smile of justified cleverness lighted up his pain-worn 
face. “I’d never thought that you would.” 

“Cute little Jimmie! Why not?” 

“Too much brains. He’d never keep you interested 
and you found it out in time.” 

“Not too soon,” observed the girl with a grimace. “The 
family are still raising merry Hades about it.” 

“Naturally. You don’t think you’re entitled to any 
Sunday-school award for good behaviour on the thing, 
do you?” 

“No. I don’t,” admitted Pat. But she pouted. 

A silence fell between them. It lasted for a full turn 
around the garden. Tired of pouting, Pat broke it. 

“Want to play bezique, Jimmie?” 

“No.” 

“Want me to read to you?” 

“No, dear.” 

“What the devil do you want? Oh, I’m sorry, Jimmie! 
I believe I’ve got nerves. Never knew there were such 
things before.” 

“Pat, stop the chair.” 

“What’s the idea, Jimmie?” 

“Come around here where I can see you.” 

“As per order.” 

“I know the man.” 

“What man?” 

“The other man.” 

“I’ve been acquainted with several of ’em in my life.” 

“So I’ve been given to understand. I’m talking about 
the man on whose account you broke your engagement.” 

“You’re seeing things, Jimmie. Monty himself is the 
nigger in that woodpile.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


325 


“What about Cary Scott ?” 

The look with which she faced him did not waver. “Well, 
what about him?” 

“He’s coming back.” 

“Coming back? Here?” Still her eyes were steady, 
but there was the faintest catch in her breathing. 

“Well, no; he isn’t. I just said that as an experiment. 
Though, of course, he might come if you wanted him. 
You do want him, don’t you, Pat dear?” 

“Sometimes. Other times I don’t. How did vou know?” 

•/ 

“When you’ve nothing to do but think,” he explained, 
“you get tired of thinking about yourself by and by and 
begin to think about other people. I’ve been thinking a 
lot about you since we got to be pals.” 

“You’re a dear, Jimmie-jams.” 

“I’m an old crab. But I’m fond of you. And Scott 
was good to me, too, when I was first laid up. When you 
think hard enough about people you’re fond of you begin 
to see things about them, even things they may not see, 
themselves.” 

“Even things that maybe aren’t there at all,” she 
mocked. 

“This is there,” he asseverated. “There’s no use your 
pretending. When we talk I’m always catching echoes 
of Scott’s influence in what you say. You’re a different 
Pat from what you were before you knew him. I don’t 
think you get on so well with yourself.” 

“You are clever, Jimmie. I don’t. And it makes me 
furious.” 

“At him?” 

“Yes. I don’t know. At myself, too.” 

“I had a letter from him last week. We’ve carried 
on a desultory correspondence since he left.” 

Pat’s eyes livened. “What does he say about me?” 


326 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“How do you know he says anything about you?” 
“Don’t tease. Tell Pattie.” 

“You ought to know Scott well enough to realise that 
he isn’t the sort to display his feelings in a show window. 
But there are lines that one could read between. Have 
you written to him, Pat?” 

“No.” 

“Aren’t you going to send for him?” 

Her face darkened with troubled memories. “I couldn’t. 
You don’t understand. I couldn’t, Jimmie.” 

“I could write.” 

“You shan’t. You mustn’t; if you do I’ll hate you. 
Promise.” 

“All right. I promise. But don’t you really want to 
see him ever again?” 

“Sometimes I think I’ll die if I don’t,” she said simply. 
“Other times—I don’t know.” 

“Why not find out? Won’t you let me write?” 

“No; no. You’ve promised.” 

“Very well. I’ll keep to it. Take me inside, slave.” 

He did not write. He cabled. 


CHAPTER XXXV 


Faint spice of budding clematis was fragrant in the 
air at Holiday Knoll. On her way to the street Pat 
passed through the arbour with a little, warm shiver of 
recollection. How long ago that other October seemed, 
that night when, amidst the scents and seductions of the 
year’s late warmth she had opened her anus and her lips 
to Cary Scott in that first, unforgettable red kiss of their 
passion; how far away; how deep buried under other, 
varied experiences! Would he ever come back? It was 
many weeks since James had talked of him, suggesting 
the possibility, and the subject had not again been brought 
up. Would she really want him back if she could have 
him? And what would she do with him if he came? Or 
he with her? Or fate with them both? Pat had become 
a good deal of a fatalist. It was a convenient theory and 
dovetailed neatly with her religion, enabling her to com¬ 
pound with her conscience at the smallest expense of self¬ 
blame. Fate, she felt, had saved her from marrying Monty 
Standish, which was a large count to its credit. 

Chiefly because of Monty she was now going down to 
the village. For he was due back after a long absence 
for repairs to his damaged heart, and the local old cats 
had prophesied that Pat would leave town, for a time 
anyway, “if she possesses a grain of decent feeling.” 
Pat purposed to do nothing of the sort. Neither Monty 
Standish nor any other living specimen of the male sex 
could run her off the public streets! For excuse she had 
some marketing to do, and she set forth with her most 
nonchalant air and independent shoulder swing. She’d 

327 


328 


FLAMING YOUTH 


show ’em whether she was ashamed or afraid to meet 
Monty! After pervading the town for a while she would 
run over for her daily chatter with Jimmie-jams. Jimmie 
was growing very frail and weary and had a look of 
eager, anxious expectancy, these days. Pat thought that 
she knew what he was waiting for. There would be a big 
void in her life when Jimmie got his release. 

Emerging from the fruit shop where she hoped to find 
an avocado pear for him, she saw a man standing on the 
curb. His back was turned, but there was that in the 
set of his shoulders, the slender grace of the figure, the 
poise of the head which startled her heart to one great 
throb of excited delight. Here, indeed, was relief from 
dull days, food for that greed of excitement, of “thrill,” 
which life had not yet begun to sate for her. 

“Mist-e r Scott!” 

He whirled about. His face lighted up. Taking the 
hand which she held out, he said, with the old, mocking 
half-lift of the brows: 

“Still that, Pat?” 

“What are you doing in Dorrisdale?” 

“I’ve just been telephoning Miss Patricia Fentriss.” 

“She’s out.” 

“So I was informed. I begin to suspect it’s true,” 

Both laughed. Pat, quite charmed with herself for the 
light and easy manner in which she was carrying off this 
potentially difficult situation, committed the error of look¬ 
ing up into his eyes. There she read a hunger and a want 
that made her avert her gaze. She sought hurriedly for 
something to say. 

“I didn’t even know that you were in this country.” 

“I wasn’t until last night.” He had fallen into step 
beside her. 

“I was going to the Jameses’,” she remarked a little 
lamely. “I go there every morning.” 


FLAMING YOUTH 329 

“Yes; I know. James has written me. You make life 
bearable for him. It’s rather wonderful of you, Pat.” 

“I like to go there,” she said in disclaimer of his praise. 
“Will you come with me?” 

“Yes; if I may.” 

For two squares that was his only remark. Pat grew 
restless. 

“You’re not too conversational,” she complained. 

“I was thinking,” he said quietly; “how very lovely 
you’ve grown.” 

“Have I, Cary?” The soft echo of the old, throaty 
crow was in her voice. “I ought to be a ruin. I’ve had 
troubles enough.” 

“Troubles? You? Haven’t you been well?” 

“D’you think that’s the only kind of trouble a girl 
can have? There are others! I came near having the 
worst of ’em four months ago.” 

“Why then?” 

“Date of my wedding,” said Pat briefly, with intent to 
create a sensation. She failed. 

“Yes; I heard you were to have been married,” he 
remarked calmly. 

“And the rest of it?” 

“That you broke off your engagement? Yes.” 

“Who told you?” 

“I found a letter when the ship docked. From James.” 

Pat’s eyes snapped with suspicion. “Did Jimmie write 
you to come back here? From Europe, I mean.” 

“He cabled.” 

“Jimmie’s a- Never mind what he is. I’ll tell him to 

his face, when we get there.” 

But when they got there T. Jameson James, it seemed, 
was not feeling very brisk. Well enough to have them 
come up to his room; oh, yes, that; and warmly glad to 
see Scott again. After a few moments’ talk, however, he 



330 


FLAMING YOUTH 


displayed symptoms of weariness. He even hinted that 
he would be better off for the time without visitors. 

Pat, with the perverseness of her excitement and antici¬ 
pations, insisted on staying to read to her brother-in-law 
as usual. This he vetoed outright. 

“No. I don’t want you. I’m sleepy. Take Scott over 
to the Knoll for luncheon. He’s probably famished. And 
Dee had to go t,o town, so there’s nothing to be had here. 
Run along.” 

Her hand being thus forced, Pat issued the invitation, 
and she and Scott left the sick-room. But they had not 
reached the front door when she turned and darted up¬ 
stairs again. Throwing herself down by the cripple’s 
couch she caught his head to her bosom and cherished it 
there. 

“Oh, Jimmie! You promise-breaker. You old liar! 
I adore you.” She pressed a swift kiss on his cheek and 
was gone. 

Mr. T. Jameson James made a face at the Devil and 
chuckled himself to sleep. 

Rejoining Scott outside Pat commanded: “Tell me 
everything you’ve been doing in the big, big world.” 

He was unprotestingly obedient, cheerfully impersonal 
throughout the walk to the Knoll. But never had she 
been more conscious of the quiet compulsion of his charm. 
Her arms ached for him. They entered the house by the 
side door. Instinctively Pat turned toward the conserva¬ 
tory, but some inexplicable revulsion of feeling checked 
her. 

“No; not there,” she said. “Let’s go to the library.” 

No sooner had the door closed behind them, than she 
turned to his embrace not so much yielding to as claiming 
him back. After the long kiss she stood away from him, 
but with her hands still clinging upon his shoulders. 

“That makes it seem all real again,” she breathed. 


FLAMING YOUTH 331 

“Have you grown so far away from me as that, my 
darling?” 

“Well, I was going to marry Monty Standish, you 
know,” she reminded him. 

“Yes. Why didn’t you?” 

“I couldn’t. You were in the way.” 

“Pat! That’s what I’ve feared and dreaded more 
than-” 

“Wait. It isn’t what you think. And it isn’t all. 
Before I was engaged to Monty I ran away with a boy 
to Boston. And you spoiled that.” 

“I don’t understand,” he said dully. 

“I left him before—well, before anything. Because”— 
she whirled away from him, flung herself upon the lounge, 
and blew him an airy kiss—“because I happened to think 
of you at the wrong time. Or perhaps it was the right 
time. Anyway, his collar gaped. Like a sick fish. And 
yours always set so beautifully. So I beat it.” She was all 
petite gamine now. “You’re always getting in my way, 
Cary. Aren’t you ’shamed?” 

He smiled at her his little twisted, tolerant smile. “You 
don’t change much, do you, little Pat?” 

“Oh, I’m fer-rightfully changed. Much more serious. 
Years older. Lost my girlish illusions. All that sorta 
thing. You won’t like me nearly as much, you’re so seri¬ 
ous yourself.” Her eyes blazed with enjoyment of the 
situation and the excitement of his proximity. “Most of 
the time I haven’t believed it, though. Have you?” 

“Believed what, Pat?” 

“About us. All of it, I mean. That we were—lovers. 
It got to seem like a dream to me; something way, far 
off. In another life. Or like something that had hap¬ 
pened to some other girl. It didn’t seem real to me, not 
even when I told Monty.” 

“Ah, you told him?” 





332 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Had to. What’d you think I’d do?” 

“Knowing your courage and honour, that’s what I’d 
think you’d do.” 

The hard, excited glitter softened out of her eyes. “I 
knew you’d want me to, Cary. Of course I never told 
him who the man was.” 

“And is that what-” 

“What broke the engagement? It did for a while. 
Then he came back. But I couldn’t stand it. Nothing 
above the ears, Cary. It wasn’t even the First Dreaming 
for me. You remember what you said that day you 
drove me over to Cissie’s about my marrying, and about 
keeping you in the background of my mind?” 

“Yes.” 

“But you don’t stay there,” she complained childishly. 
“You’re always popping out and spoiling things.” She 
gave him a challenging look. “I was sort of keeping you 
for my Second Dreaming.” 

Scott laughed. “Pat, dearest, are you flirting with 
me after I’ve come four thousand miles-” 

“What did you come for?” 

“For you.” 

Her loosely clasped hands stirred and parted. “Well— 
here I am.” 

“That’s not enough.” 

“You don’t want much, do you?” she murmured. 

“Everything or nothing now. You know I’m free.” 

She nodded. “I can see what’s coming,” she said with 
a pretence of demureness. “If you’ve hopped across those 
four thousand miles from a sense of duty to the weeping- 

girl that you left behind-” 

“PatJ” 

“Don’t bark at me. It frazzles my nerves. I haven’t 
done any weeping over you, Cary. Too busy with the 
thrills of life. Would you have come back, I wonder, if 





FLAMING YOUTH 


333 


you could have known everything that’s been going on. 
Suppose I’d stayed in Boston that time?” 

“Well?” 

“Wouldn’t that make a difference?” 

“In my wanting to marry you? No.” 

“Suppose,” she said more slowly, “I’d had an affair, a 
real affair with Monty. Like ours.” 

A spasm of pain passed over his face. “I shouldn’t 
blame you. How could I?” 

“Wouldn’t it make any difference in your loving me?” 

“Not an iota.” 

“Wouldn’t you even care?” she flashed in resentful 
wrath. 

“Care? Good God, Pat, if you saw a man in tor¬ 
ture-” 

“Oh, don’t, Cary, dear,” she cried, startled and re¬ 
morseful. “It isn’t true. It’s just my sneaking, rotten 
curiosity to know how you’d feel about it.” She pursed 
her lips, musing darkly. “I wonder,” she began. “Have 
you been true to me? Not that I’ve got any right to ask 
or that it makes a bit of difference in my young life 
whether you have or not, but just-” 

She broke off, leaning forward, studying his face as he 
looked at her in silence. 

“Cary! Why don’t you say something? I would care. 
I’d care like hell.” 

“I came back,” he said slowly, “because you are the 
one and only woman in the world for me and always have 
been since I saw you. Is that enough answer?” 

“From any other man in the world it wouldn’t be an 
answer at all. From you it’s enough.” 

“Will you marry me, Pat?” 

She jumped to her feet, walked over to the window, 
and looked out to where the clematis blooms trembled in 
the wind. 




334 


FLAMING YOUTH 


“Oh, I suppose so,” she said fretfully. “If you want; 
to take the chance.” 

“What chance, dear love?” 

“The chance every man takes that marries a girl of 
the kind you men all seem to want to marry. How many 
of the married set here d’you suppose are true to their 
husbands ?” 

“I don’t like you cynical, Pat. You’ve been letting 
something poison your mind.” 

“Not me. I see things as they are; that’s all. Ask 
Con. Ask Dee. Ask Bobs. Ask any of ’em. You know 
you could have had Con if you’d really wanted her. And 
then I butted in.” Her chuckle was full of diablerie. It 
still persisted in her tone as she continued: “Cary, what 
would you do to me if I went straying off the reservation 
after we were married?” 

“Nothing.” 

“Oh, don’t be so calm and superior and noble about 
it,” she fretted. “You’d tempt an angel to try a flutter 
just to see whether she would get by with it.” 

“What do you want me to say, Pat?” 

“I want you to tell me honestly how you think you’re 
going to hold me if I do marry you.” 

“Come over here.” 

She walked across to him, defiant, daring, provocative. 
“Well?” 

“You love me, don’t you, Pat?” 

“You make me when you’re with me.” 

“And when I’m not?” 

“That’s just the trouble. You’re there all the time, 
parked just around the corner and you won’t let me 
love anybody else enough to—to do any good.” 

“And if I asked you now,” he said, low and insistent, 
“you’d come back to me and be to me what you were 
before. Wouldn’t you?” 


FLAMING YOUTH 


335 


There was a quickening in her shadowed eyes, in her 
soft breathing. “You know I would,” she whispered. 
“How could I help myself?” 

“Then you couldn’t very well marry anyone else, could 
you?” 

“I’ve tried. It was a fliv, as you know. What’s the 
answer?” 

“Isn’t it plain enough? Why not try me—on your 
own terms?” 

“Where do you get that ‘own term’ stuff, Cary?” she 
demanded suspiciously. “Do you know about Dee and 
Jimmie; their arrangement?” 

“No.” 

“It’s a secret. But you belong to us,” she added 
sweetly; “to the Eentrisses. So I’ll tell you. They were 
to stay married for a month and after that if either of 
them wanted to quit, they were just to live like unmarried 
people without any fuss. Only Jimmie wouldn’t keep to 
it. That’s what made the row.” 

“Would you like to try that plan?” he asked in an 
inscrutable tone. 

“Would you do it?” She looked at him doubtfully. 
“Would you really let me go after a month if I wanted 
to?” 

“After a day. Do you think I’d try to hold you against 
your wish?” 

“Then I don’t think you can love me much,” she 
objected with perverse jealousy. 

“It strikes me as a perfectly fair bargain to both. I 
certainly ought to be willing to take the chance,” he said 
reasonably, “if you are.” 

“If I am! Cary! You mean that you—might—want 
—to leave me?” A startled incredulity made the words 
jerky. 

“One can never be quite certain how these things are 



336 


FLAMING YOUTH 


going to turn out, can one?” he observed with a fine air 
of judicial detachment. “Shall I have my lawyer draw 
the agreement?” 

“Cary; you’re laughing at me,” she accused. 

“Far be it from me, in a matter of such serious 
import-” 

“You are! You’re hateful! It isn’t fair. You know 
that’s the way to hold me and you know you don’t mean 
to let me get loose for a single minute. I don’t like your 
knowing so dam’ much about women,” she continued 
plaintively. “It makes it so uneven.” 

“I’m trying to be fair,” he pointed out. He drew a 
chair up to the writing desk. “Suppose I just sketch out 
the scheme. ‘This agreement,’ he dictated to himself, 
speaking the words slowly, ‘between Patricia Fen- 
triss-’ ” 

“Scott,” she interposed. 

“—Scott—thank you, dearest—and—Cary—Scott— 
for—the—space—of—one—month—after-” 

She bent across his shoulder, put a soft hand over his 
mouth, then slipped it aside to make place for the yearn- 
ing of her own lips. When she finally leaned back from 
him it was to say judicially: 

“I offer an amendment. Let’s make it twenty years 
instead of a month. But, oh, Cary, darling!” Her eyes 
darkened, brooded, dreamed, grew sombre, subtle, pro¬ 
phetic as she gave voice to her warning. “As a husband 
you’ll have to be a terribly on-the-job lover. There are 
so many men in the world!” 


FINIS 




























LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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